A Man of Many Parts: The Life and Legacy of Francis Willey Kelsey

While serving as the Annual Professor at the American School of Classical Studies in Rome in 1900–1901, F. W. Kelsey purchased six marble fragments. Almost eighty years later, the fragments were identified as most likely belonging to the Templum Gentis Flaviae, a Roman sanctuary and mausoleum honoring the three Flavian emperors (Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian) and members of their family.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, large-scale building projects in Rome uncovered immense quantities of archaeological material. The area near the former site of the Templum underwent massive alteration after the construction of a new central railroad station in 1864. Kelsey and many others purchased artifacts unearthed in these construction projects.

Kelsey bought the six fragments in separate lots from a foreman of a building project near the Baths of Diocletian and from a dealer. Around the same time, Professor Paul Hartwig, a German archaeologist, acquired nine other marble fragments, which he donated to the Museo Nazionale Romano. Records from that museum indicate that workers at the construction site where Hartwig's fragments were found stole the artifacts and sold them on the antiquities market. It seems very likely that Kelsey's purchases came from the same workers, although no records verify that this was the case.

Hima Mallampati