When a museum displays a piece of art, they generally try to show the whole thing. It's rare to see a painting with half the canvas missing, or a tapestry with one side unraveled. But when it comes to ancient Roman statues, being a little broken is almost the norm. Walk around any museum of classical art, and you'll likely see shattered noses, cleaved fingers and an awful lot of severed heads.
So why are so many Roman statues headless? Answering that question requires some "archaeological CSI" work, said Rachel Kousser, a classics and art history professor at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York.
