Gelderland museum finds Roman masterpieces in unopened boxes

The Valkhof Museum in Nijmegen made a remarkable discovery when it started opening boxes containing archaeological excavations from the past 70 years. Several of the boxes contained Roman masterpieces, including a vase with a smiling face and a “unique penis sculpture,” the Valkhof Museum and the province of Gelderland reported.

“This turns out to be an enormous treasure trove,” said Provincial Executive member Peter Drenth. “These first boxes alone show how rich and diverse Roman life in Gelderland was.”

The 16,000 boxes ended up in the province of Gelderland nearly 20 years ago due to a change in the law. At the end of last year, the province allocated €8 million to inventory the contents of the boxes and repack them, a process expected to take six years.

So far, 300 of the boxes have been opened. The first boxes mainly contained finds discovered in the ground beneath Canisius College, a former boarding school in Nijmegen-East. The items are between 1,800 and 2,000 years old and include several masterpieces.

Among them are a nearly intact drinking cup with a face on it that was found at a Roman army camp and orange-red cups and bowls. “It concerns a luxury earthenware service. You can tell by the technique used, in which Romans pressed patterns into the pottery using a mold,” said province archeologist Ilse Schuuring. “On the service, you can see deer leaping through a forest. You can compare it to brands like Wedgwood or Villeroy & Bosch, but nearly 2,000 years old.”

Another great find is a 20-centimeter-long penis carved from bone. Except for a wooden one found in the United Kingdom in 2023, all other discovered Roman penis sculptures were made from non-organic material, such as stone.

According to Schuuring, Romans felt no shame about genitals, as many cultures today do. “Images of them were common, for example, as amulets. It symbolizes fertility. Images of them were also hung at doorways to keep evil spirits out.”