Rome landfill yields relics from Holy Year project site

Citizens groups have tried to halt construction

of parking garage.

By PETER W. MAYER

The Associated Press

ROME --- Fragments of ancient statues, frescoes and other archaeological relics turned up Wednesday at a dump outside Rome, sparking a furor when police traced them to the site of a parking garage being built for the 2000 Holy Year.

Citizens' groups and Italy's Green Party demanded an immediate stop to work on the garage, a government- and Vatican-funded project for the buses that will bring pilgrims and tourists to St. Peter's Square.

"I'm horrified," said Gaia Pallottino of Italia Nostra (Our Italy), a group that has been pushing for the preservation of imperial frescoes found earlier at the same site.

"If this is true, it would confirm all our fears on what's going on with the work in that area," she said.

Greens Party lawmakers blamed Rome Mayor Francesco Rutelli, an enthusiastic overseer of the city's Holy Year renovations, for his part in "inciting the destruction of part of the historic and cultural patrimony of the capital."

Rutelli earlier dismissed archaeological finds at the garage site as "less than what the average Roman would find in his basement." His office refused immediate comment Wednesday.

City officials agreed the roughly 100 relics came from the site of the Janiculum parking garage, which is being built on a hilly plot partially on city land and partially on Vatican land.

Lt. Riccardo Chieco said police found the relics at what appeared to be an illegal dump just outside Rome.

"The material found includes marble slabs, fragments of ancient frescoes and mosaics and statues, as well as pieces of brickwork and other building materials," Chieco said.

In August, work at the site stopped for more than a month when laborers dug up a frescoed chamber of a villa believed to date to the 1st century. Work crews revved up again, only to dig up a second, frescoed room.

Italy's department of UNESCO and environmental and cultural groups and allied lawmakers wrote Rome and Italian authorities then to formally urge that work be stopped.

"It's unthinkable that the wall of a Roman villa or the fragments of some frescoes should halt a public work project that has already caused Romans much discomfort during its construction over many months," the mayor said earlier this month.

Backers of the project have been awaiting an official government decision on whether the work could continue. Until Wednesday's find, the ruling had been expected to go in the parking garage's favor.

Work had kept going in advance of the ruling, with bulldozers carting away earthfuls at a time.

Italy's Culture Ministry said it is investigating the most recent finds.

The Vatican has expressed concern the parking lot might not be done in time for Holy Year pilgrims. It otherwise has said little publicly on the dispute, except that nothing of value had been found on Vatican territory.

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