Leda and the Swan: New marble sculpture from Skelani (Municipium Malvesatium)

Abstract

A fragmented marble sculpture was found during the construction works on the canalisation collector in Skelani (Municipium Malvesatium). The sculpture presents a life-size bird's torso with his right webbed foot placed on a female's left thigh, part of a folded cloth and a childlike hand placed on the lower part of the bird's torso. It was identified as a mythological scene favoured in antiquity, of Leda and Zeus in the guise of the swan, at the moment of Zeus' seduction of Leda. This sculptural fragment holds even greater significance in the comprehension of Roman provincial art, since to date, it represents a unique example of this iconographic type, not only in sculpture, but in any other work of art in the territory of the Central Balkans.