Illegal excavation reveals grand Roman villa with elaborate mosaics

By Barbie Latza Nadeau, CNN

Rome (CNN) — A Roman villa with intricate mosaics has been unearthed on the outskirts of the Italian capital, in a remarkable discovery that emerged after police were alerted to a clandestine dig on government land.

The property is located in what is now the village of Castel di Guido, about 12 miles from Rome. In Imperial times — 27 BC to the fifth century AD — it was a hamlet of residential palaces known as Lorium.

The villa is still being excavated and studied, but archaeologists have so far uncovered a grand entrance hall with an atrium and sunken basin, known as an impluvium, surrounded by a mosaic floor with black and white botanical and geometric designs.

In its Imperial heyday, Lorium was frequented by emperors including Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, Italy’s Ministry of Culture said in a press release earlier this week.

The discovery was revealed when concerned neighbors contacted authorities in February to report illicit activity at the site.

When the Carabinieri military police attended, they recognized the telltale signs of the work of tomb raiders who loot archaeological sites in search of treasures — a practice that has led to the illicit sale of thousands of stolen artifacts, according to the culture ministry.

Small piles of dirt, work going on at night and no permission signs for authorized excavations tipped off officials, according to a spokesperson for the Carabinieri Art Police, a specialized unit dedicated to stopping the theft of Italy’s vast historical treasures.

Authorities discovered that a small group of people used a backhoe to break ground into a vast cavern below, in a hidden part of the property, which is protected by fences that they cut through.

Within a few days, the dig was stopped and, even though the perpetrators got away, what authorities found was astonishing: a previously unknown ancient villa with perfectly preserved artifacts.

“In just a few days, officials from the Ministry of Culture, in collaboration with the Carabinieri, stopped a clandestine operation,” Italian Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli said in a statement Monday.

“They secured an archaeological area and brought to light the remains of a splendid Imperial-era villa in the Roman countryside where the Imperial residences of the Antonine dynasty were located.”

Some of the structure was mildly damaged by the clandestine dig and the use of pickaxes and drills, the ministry said. It is unclear if anything was stolen.

Alessia Contino, archaeologist with the Special Superintendency of Rome, which surveyed the villa, said the findings range from lavish mosaics to intricate marble work. There are also the remnants of a statue thought to be of Silvanus, the Roman god of the countryside, holding a small animal in one hand and a basket adorned with birds in another.

“The exceptional quality of the decorations testifies that the villa belonged to prominent members of the Roman aristocracy, closely linked to the Imperial court,” Contino said when the discovery was unveiled this week.

For decades, tomb raiders have pillaged sites across the country, selling them on the black market.

Many of these important pieces ended up in museums around the world thanks to art dealers who either faked provenance papers or smuggled them out of the country.

Many of the artifacts have been returned over the past few decades, including some from American museums.

Further excavations are still underway, but the general public will get its first peek at the extraordinary site on Saturday when visitors will be allowed in by appointment.

Further dates are expected to be added throughout the coming months, the culture ministry said.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.