The myth of the Mouth of Truth, La Bocca della Verità in Italian, is famous the world over. 'Tell a lie with your hand in the Mouth of Truth and the mouth will bite off your hand.' But no one knows for sure why the marble carving is located in the portico of a church or whether it was used as a lie detector before the Middle Ages. Here's what Archaeologists know. The Mouth of Truth has been in the portico of Santa Maria in Cosmedin since 1632. The carving was made sometime around 200 BC. Letterboxes, called the Mouth of Truth, were used in the Middle Ages to tattle on fellow citizens. The Mouth of Truth is a mascaron because it is a carving of a grotesque face. The rest is a mystery. Does the man-like face look like Oceanus, god of unknown waters? Faunus, god of the wilderness? Or perhaps Medusa? Was the disc a manhole in Ancient Rome? The cover of a sacred well? Or was the Mouth of Truth once a fountain? What do you think is true? Print this page and write your story here.


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