ALBAWABA - Libyan authorities find a huge bronze female wolf statue that was once erected on a column in the centre of Benghazi, before it disappeared decades ago.
The authorities received a tip about the statue, which dates back to the colonial era, and discovered it on a property near Benghazi owned by an 80-year-old man called Saeed Muhammad Burbida, who informed the authorities that he bought the statue from a scrapyard because he liked its shape.
The owner of the farm said "I own a metal smelting workshop. I found this statue in the scrapyard, and its owner did not feel any attachment to it as he considered it a taboo and a colonial heritage. When I saw it, both its shape and the way it was made attracted me, so I bought it from him."
The statue, which symbolizes the "Capitolinia" wolf and represents a mythical scene from ancient Rome, was kept by Burbida in an open area close to his home's balcony under a large tree.
A complaint from the Benghazi Antiquities Control Department claiming that a bronze statue was on a farm near Sidi Farag in the city of Benghazi prompted the Benghazi Tourist and Antiquities Protection Police branch to take immediate action.
Benghazi Tourist Police and Antiquities Protection
The twins "Romulus and Remus," who founded Rome in 753 BC, were breastfed by a wolf named Luba Captiolina. This artifact vanished in the 1970s while it was close to the port of Benghazi, and all appropriate legal actions were taken as a result of the raid by police officers.
The statue was erected by the Italian colonial authorities in the 1930s as they were establishing the new city of Benghazi as a way to further bolster the connection between the ancient Roman dominance of Libya and the current Italian colonial power over the nation.
Benghazi Tourist Police and Antiquities Protection
The statue of the female wolf was removed from its pillar after Libya attained independence, and it vanished after Muammar Gaddafi took control in 1969, during a revolutionary era that saw the hiding of signs of foreign colonial domination from view.
The director of the Benghazi police's tourism and antiquities protection division, Khaled al-Aqouri, stated that he was certain Burbida was not aware that the statue was still regarded as public property.
