Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy, has become well known in past months for his womanizing ways. Now, with their recent release just a couple days ago, new audio tapes of the septuagenarian Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri have provided convincing evidence of his involvement with a hired call girl. More surprising, however, is the revelation, made by Berlusconi himself, in one of the tapes that some 30 Phoenician tombs were discovered on Berlusconi’s estate. While an archaeology geek like myself can understand why Berlusconi chose to brag about this, the big problem is that this is news to the world. Before these tapes were released, the archaeological community and the Italian government (Berlusconi excluded) were unaware of such discoveries. In Italy, failure to report archaeological discoveries is, quite rightfully, a criminal offense; one punishable by up to 12 months in prison.
Berlusconi was certainly right when he said, yesterday, “I’m no saint.” He’ll probably be able to get away with the philandering. Let’s hope he doesn’t get away with the failure to report these important archaeological discoveries.
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Darrell J. Rohl BSc (Hons) (Andrews), MA (Dunelm): I'm a PhD candidate in 