SAN ANTONIO — A 2000-year-old Roman bust that has served shelf life at an Austin Goodwill is heading back to Germany next month.
In 2018, Laura Young stumbled upon a 50-pound, white marble bust at the Goodwill on Far West Boulevard in Austin. Thinking it was a steal at $34.99, she purchased it and brought it home.
According to CNN, after Young researched more into her newly acquired bust, she discovered it was about 2,000 years old, and San Antonio Museum of Art believes the bust resembles Roman military leader Sextus Pompey.
How this ancient bust arrived at a Goodwill in Austin is not exactly clear, but one theory is that when a German museum was bombed in World War II, thousands of art pieces were stolen and brought back to America by U.S. soldiers
The bust has been on loan to the San Antonio Museum of Art from Munich’s Glyptothek for the last year. According to CNN, May 21 will be the last day of this display before it is packed up and shipped back to Germany. The bust will join two other Roman sculptures from San Antonio Museum of Art and will travel back to Germany together to be together again for the first time in years. A Glyptothek representative will oversee their packaging process and shepherd them home.