Golden Bough from Roman mythology 'found in Italy'

[Liffrea]

Italian archaeologists claim to have found a stone enclosure which once protected the legendary "Golden Bough".

In Roman mythology, the bough was a tree branch with golden leaves that enabled the Trojan hero Aeneas to travel through the underworld safely.

They discovered the remains while excavating religious sanctuary built in honour of the goddess Diana near an ancient volcanic lake in the Alban Hills, 20 miles south of Rome.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/7258607/Golden-Bough-from-Roman-mythology-found-in-Italy.html

[Cato]

Pah, I'm sure they found the Palladium too.

"They believe the enclosure protected a huge Cypress or oak tree which was sacred to the Latins, a powerful tribe which ruled the region before the rise of the Roman Empire."

The oak tree was sacred to Jupiter, just as the oak tree was sacred to his Grecian counterpart, Zeus, and to Thor (Thor's Oak, felled by that sod Boniface, anyone?). Sacred groves prefigured into Roman religion and the oak tree was sacred to Jupiter because it was one of the trees that was struck so often by lightning blasts. Calling a sacred site like this the site of the mythical Golden Bough is like saying you found the tomb of Jesus- and Jerusalen has more than one of them I believe.

It's very interesting to be sure, but it has no more to do with the Aeneid than the droopy old oak tree in my yard.

[Osweo]

It's very interesting to be sure, but it has no more to do with the Aeneid than the droopy old oak tree in my yard.
Au contraire, mon frere! Virgil wrote the Aeneid in the early Empire, and used many things from real life to lend his fable more credence than it really deserved. THe Grove of Diana at Nemi is such an instance.

I urge anyone who hasn't, to read Fraser's 'Golden Bough' - the groundbreaking folkloric study of the heyday of that discipline. He draws on Virgil's account, but backs it up with more prosaic witness of this site and its peculiar ritual and ... 'recruitment' process, from other Classical authorities.

There was such a place. Fraser himself went to visit.

[Psychonaut]

I urge anyone who hasn't, to read Fraser's 'Golden Bough'

The library of my dreams contains a complete (15 vol.) set (http://www.amazon.com/Golden-Bough-Fifteen-Set/dp/0333977084). ;)