Berlusconi's Grave New Problem

This is pretty funny. For months now one of our favorites, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has found himself in the middle of an ongoing sex scandal. It started with his odd relationship with an 18-year old lingerie model, it’s included pictures of naked Czech politicians frolicking poolside at his villa and allegations that he stocked private parties with hired ‘escorts’. Of course now a tape has emerged (audio sadly, not video) of Silvio chatting up one of his lady ‘friends’ at his new villa on the isle of Sardinia. But what could get Berlusconi in real trouble is not sex but graves, very old graves.

It seems that the tape catches Silvio telling his friend that while putting in a private lake at the villa they “found 30 Phoenician tombs from 300BC.” This came as a big surprise to the archeological community, which under Italian law has to be notified about any historic findings (like, say, ancient Phoenician graves). Italy, being steeped in history, takes these things seriously – not reporting a possible find could get you up to a year in jail. On top of that, Phoenician graves have never been found in Silvio’s part of Sardinia, meaning they’d be not mildly interesting, but extremely important in terms of expanding knowledge of early Italian history.

So far the Italian parliament has only asked Berlusconi to “explain” his statement to his friend. Stay tuned for more developments.