Until half way through the year 2009, the headquarters of the Catalonian Archeology Museum MAC (Museo de Arqueología de Catalunya) and the L´Escala town will hold nearly thirty scientific and educational activities to celebrate the centenary of the excavations of the old city of Empúries, promoted by the architect, politician and historian Joseph Puig I Cadafalch in 1909.

For the occasion of the Centenary of the beginning of the excavations, the best Greek sculpture found in Catalunya returned in March to its origin place; L´Escolapi or Asclepi d´Empúries.

The ancient Greek God of medicine, of 800 Kg and 2,17 metres of hight, has been exposed in Badalona, Mataró and the Archeology Museum of Catalonia (Barcelona), where it received 6,285 visitors.

In these 99 years in Barcelona, the sculpture went through an intense and meticulous restoration process that permitted the reconstruction of about 85 fragments, including the arms.

Apart from being the best kept classical figure in the west Mediterranean, the detailed reports reinforce the hypothesis that some specialist marked. L´Escolapi was a collage from ancient times.

The bust and body don’t correspond to the same piece and they don´t match to perfection. Neither the arms, what make believe, at least in the ancient Greek city that there were three sculptures of great dimensions.

The study shows that the right arm is made of marble from Paros (Greece), while the body is made of pentelic marble. On the other hand, the left hand is of a better quality and bigger proportion than the rest.

It is evident that some parts don´t correspond to the whole, and that would have been taken from another sculpture. Also, the restoration again of the pieces that, supposedly don´t correspond to the whole is even more difficult due to the hardness of the cement with which the fractured pieces were restored.

Now, you can admire it in the new room at the Museo d´Empúries which is equipped with the corresponding environmental controls of temperature and humidity.