Stage 7 – Mouth of Truth: Seal of Truthfulness

Info

This entry is part of the city game "The Mystery of the Nine Seals", which takes place entirely in Rome. The game is an addition to the basic tourist guide to Rome - [click] and is a story expansion designed to make the traditional tour of the city more enjoyable.
If you got here, for example, directly from a search engine and want to start the game from the beginning, go to game start page - [click]. If you are looking for just a guide to Rome with practical information about sightseeing, you can go to traditional guide to Rome - [click]

The mouth of truth

The Mouth of Truth is marked on the map number 7.

GPS coordinates

GPS: 41.888252,12.481549 - click and plot the route to your destination

Narration

Your hand approaches the stone mouth. Suddenly – a slight gust. Did the sculpture really move???
Legend has it that if you lie and touch the Mouth of Truth, you will be cursed. Some believe that the sculpture closes its eyes when it detects a fraud.

Puzzle

What film did the Mouth of Truth appear in?

(You'll find the correct answer at the bottom of this page, but don't look there right away. Try to answer the riddle yourself first. That's the fun of it!)

Prize

The reward for solving the puzzle is the seventh seal: Seal of the Pure Heart – a symbol of truth. Keep it as proof of solving the seventh task!

Curiosities and secrets of the stone face

The stone circle with the face of a deity stuck to the outside wall of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin seems to be just a funny legend. But the Mouth of Truth – Bocca della Verità – has been stirring up anxiety for centuries. It stares at you with dead eyes, as if saying, “Try lying to me. Let’s see what happens.”
Legend has it that this ancient disk cut off the hands of liars. But no one knows where it really comes from. Some say it's the cover of an ancient sewer. Others say it's an altar element that was supposed to detect lies during oaths. And there are those who believe that the sculpture was not made in Rome, but was brought here from a place that has been lost in the mists of time.

Roman reality show from 2000 years ago

In the Middle Ages, it was believed that men could bring their wives to the Mouth of Truth to test their fidelity. If a woman told a lie, the stone would bite off her hand. Some say that a woman saved herself by faking a faint – and her lover blended in as a passerby. The stone remained still… perhaps it hesitated?

He is not the only one

The Mouth of Truth is the best known of Rome's "judgment stones," but similar slabs have been found in ruins at Ostia and around Naples. They had no faces—but holes in the center and mysterious inscriptions suggest that the ritual of "truth-telling" was practiced more widely than is realized.

The mouth is silent, but at night…

The church guards claim that every once in a while, after dark, you can hear a soft, rasping sound, like someone breathing through a stone hole. Of course – it's just a draft. Right?

The interior of the disk has never been thoroughly examined.

Although the Bocca della Verità weighs more than 1,2 tons and is about 1800 years old, its interior has never been fully scanned. There is a theory that the stone is not solid—that it conceals a space where a mechanism or ritual object was once hidden. No archaeologist has confirmed this. And none is in any hurry to find out.

***

"The truth doesn't always hurt. But he who speaks it must be ready for what he hears in silence."

***

Answer to the riddle

Click to reveal the answer to the riddle

"Roman holiday"

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