Archaeometric Study and Reassembly of the Head and Body of the Leontinoi Kouros (Sicily)

Abstract

The so-called Apolline Head, discovered at ancient Leontinoi (modern Lentini, Province of Syracuse, Sicily) by Ignazio Paternò Castello, Prince of Biscari, in the eighteenth century and currently preserved in the Ursino Castle Municipal Museum in Catania, together with the torso of an acephalous ephebe, acquired by Paolo Orsi in 1904 at Lentini and now housed in the Regional Archaeological Museum ‘Paolo Orsi’ in Syracuse, have been the subject of an archaeometric investigation aimed at resolving a longstanding scholarly debate regarding their possible association. Through petrographic and isotopic analyses, it has been conclusively demonstrated that both fragments originate from the same block of Parian marble, specifically extracted from the open-pit quarries of Lakkoi on the Greek island of Paros. A detailed anatomical examination further supports the attribution of the head and torso to a single Archaic statue. A virtual reconstruction was carried out via high-resolution laser scanning, producing a three-dimensional model with sub-millimetric accuracy. This digital modeling allowed for the precise replication of the contact surfaces between the two fragments. Rapid prototyping techniques were subsequently employed to fabricate a highstrength plastic diaphragm designed to fill the slight gap caused by eighteenth-century modifications to the base of the head, which had been smoothed to facilitate its placement on a pedestal. This intervention ultimately enabled a secure and fully reversible reattachment of the two components.