A shiver runs down his spine and he lights a cigarette. He thinks he sees a bowl and several smaller cups drawn up from the earth and then nothing.
A lock out on the edge, still wearing his Barena sports jacket and black turtleneck against the night’s chill, glances back. No words are spoken, but a frisson moves through the group. Now the sound of shovels digging the rocky soil in unison, syncopated and fast, is like hot jazz. When they hit something, the team turns and works on that point. Long poles with spikes ( spillones) piercing the earth rhythmically like the V8 engine in a 33 Stradale. A man stops here to comb his hair, another, perhaps, takes off his sunglasses for a second to massage the bridge of his nose. Sports jackets, the day to day uniform of Italians from that time, lying nonchalantly on rocky walls. Their muscles bulging beneath their sweat stained Salvatore Piccolo shirts. The healthy glean of their sun kissed skin, kept young with a healthy Italian diet, visible from the light of their torches. We can imagine them- handsome and nattily dressed. Omertà, the ancient code of honour has prevailed to this day.
On a dark and stormy night, in Etruria in late December 1971, a ragged band of diggers called the tombaroli unearthed a masterpiece of Greek art: the Sarpedon Krater.
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