Greg Gatwood was working in his San Francisco backyard this May when his shovel struck something hard beneath the dirt. Gatwood, a 65-year-old landscape contractor, figured that he’d hit an old fence post footing.
Instead, after freeing the object with a pickax, Gatwood found himself face to face with a bust of a woman. Made of limestone, the hefty piece consisted of a woman’s head and neck rising from a rectangular base. It was substantial, weighing roughly 150 pounds and measuring about 22 inches wide, 18 inches high and 10 inches deep.
“It’s exciting,” Gatwood tells NBC Bay Area’s Raj Mathai. “It’s probably the most exciting thing I’ve ever dug up in a yard, and I’ve dug up a lot of things over the years.”…