ANKARA, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- A female bust which belonged to Empress Faustina Maior, wife of Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius, has been unearthed in the ancient city of Sagalassos in southwestern Turkey, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported Wednesday.

    Jeroen Poblome of Belgian Katholieke Universiteit Leuven was quoted as saying that they found the bust of the wife of Antoninus Pius who reigned the Roman Empire from A.D. 138 to 161.

    The 300-kg sculpture was taken to an excavation center in the neighboring town of Aglasun of Burdur province and will be displayed in the museum of Burdur after restoration works are completed, the report said.

    According to historical textbooks, Faustina, a beautiful woman renowned for her wisdom, spent her whole life caring for the poor and assisting the most disadvantaged Romans. Faustina bore Antoninus four children -- two sons and two daughters.

    Sagalassos, now an archaeological site, was known as the "first city of Pisidia" in Roman imperial times.

    The urban site was laid out on various terraces at an altitude between 1400 and 1600 meters. Inhabitants were forced to abandon the town after a devastating earthquake around the middle of the seventh century.

    Large-scale excavations started in 1990 under the direction of Prof. Dr. Marc Waelkens of the Belgian Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

    A large number of buildings, monuments and other archaeological remains have been exposed, documenting the monumental aspect of the Hellenistic, Roman and early Byzantine history of this town.