Massimo Osanna, Director General of National Museums, Italian Ministry of Culture

In May 2023 the Carabinieri recovered an ancient mural painting from a London warehouse that had been illegally exported from Italy. Subsequent analyses suggest that this unique piece, datable to the third century BCE, likely decorated a tomb in Apulia, in southern Italy. The painting depicts a family gathering—a total of sixteen members, both female and male—in the presence of Hermes, the god who guides the deceased to the Underworld. Rendered in vibrant polychromy, the figures are individually identified by name through inscriptions in the local Daunian language and script.

This is the first time this exceptional piece will be presented outside of Italy. The talk will highlight its connections with coeval artistic trends both in Apulia and the wider Greek Mediterranean; it will discuss the results of the scientific analyses and the technical and conservation study carried out by the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro, focusing on the materials and pigments employed and on the painter’s working methods; and it will provide an interpretation of its iconography, contextualizing it within the social and cultural world of the ancient Daunians.

Click HERE for a full list of 2025 workshop abstracts.