The Treasures of Comacchio

In Italy's marshy delta of the Po stands the small, bedraggled town of Comacchio. Noted chiefly for poverty, tuberculosis, and eels caught in the nearby lagoons, it had a period of illicit prosperity in the 1920s. When the Valle Trebba was drained by a reclamation project, its muddy bottom proved to be an ancient necropolis. Out of 1,250 tombs came bronze vases and candelabra, gold and silver jewelry and a wealth of beautiful pottery. Part of it was of Etruscan manufacture dating as far back as the 5th century B.C. Much of the rest was Greek of various periods.

Archaeologists speculated that the necropolis must have belonged to the Etruscan city of Spina, which is mentioned in classical literature. But they did not find Spina. They did not find all of the treasures, either. Many of the valuable objects were poached by night-digging Comacchiesi, who sold their illegal loot on the archaeological black market.

Premature Napoleon. At last the Valle Trebba was worked out. The official archaeologists moved to other diggings, and the Comacchiesi were reduced to salting the tombs with non-ancient artifacts (including a bust of Napoleon) which they dug up with feigned delight and sold to gullible collectors. When even this poor commerce died, the Comacchiesi returned to catching eels.

Last year there was muted joy in Comacchio and fury among authorized archaeologists; genuine Etruscan antiquities began to appear again on the black market. Stealthy detective work told the authorities where the treasures were coming from. Another lagoon, the Valle Pega, was being drained, and as the waters shallowed, the Comacchiesi stole out at night in their eel boats and probed the mud with steel-tipped poles. When they touched something hard, they dug in the mud and drew out an Attic vase or an Etruscan bronze. The archaeologists called the cops, and the Comacchiesi were routed, but not before they had dug a considerable amount of treasure.

Amber & Gold. When the water of the Valle Pega had been drained away, the official archaeologists attacked the newfound diggings. It was a sloppy job, but by using pumps and sheet-metal cofferdams, they reached the deep tombs that the Comacchiesi had missed. Guided by Professor Paolo Enrico Arias of the Uni versity of Catania (who wears a beret and looks, except for his red rubber boots, like a movie director of the Keystone Cop period), the laborers extracted a stream of beautiful things dating from the time when Rome was young. One tomb contained the skeleton of a young Etruscan woman with a necklace of Baltic amber and a beautifully worked gold brooch an inch and a half in diameter. Another yielded a gold diadem seven inches across, decorated with bearded heads and an Amazon shooting an arrow. Equally interesting are the bronzes, one of which, a candelabra, shows the figure of Hermes leading a soul to the underworld.

Cold weather recently stopped the official digging, and police are frustrating the free lancers. Spina, the mother lode of the treasure, has not yet been found. Perhaps it lies under the mud not far away. There is a rumor that Professor Arias knows where it is, but is keeping mum. Sophisticates in nearby Ferrara do not believe this. "When Spina is found," they say, "the Comacchiesi will find it."

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