Documentation of the Roman Bronze Hand Found in the Site of “el Tossal” in Lucentum

In this article we present the results of the investigation of an extraordinary piece appeared in the excavations of the Roman forum of Lucentum (Alicante, Spain) in 2005. It is a fragment of a bronze sculpture which is catalogued as a Unicum, that is, a work that presents some singular elements with no comparison with other examples of the Roman Art. This sample represents the only part that is conserved so far of that sculpture. Over this piece, a complete and exhaustive study where carried out. One of the most important parts of this study was the 3D digitizing of the rest, that permitted an anthropomorphic study of the hand and arm and giving as a result the position of the whole statue. From this reconstruction, and from the symbolism extracted from the rest, it was possible to obtain the identification of the person represented.