A rare and nearly intact 2,700-year-old statue will go on display at Greece’s popular tourist island of Santorini over the weekend, the culture ministry said on Friday.
The Kore of Thera, a 7th century BC statue of a long-haired woman that is believed to be a funerary monument at the cemetery of the ancient city of Thera, was discovered in November 2000, a ministry statement said.
Standing nearly 2.5 metres (more than eight feet) tall and made of marble from the nearby island of Naxos, the statue is missing only the tip of its nose and an elbow.
“It is one of the few surviving large early Hellenic statues made of stone,” the ministry said.
Similar statues found in the cemetery in the past were in far worse condition.
The statue will be briefly displayed at a temporary exhibition inaugurated on Sunday at the museum of Santorini, which is undergoing renovation, the ministry said.
One of Greece’s leading travel destinations, Santorini was completely reshaped by a volcanic eruption in the late 17th century BC that wiped out a culturally advanced Minoan colony.
The statue is from a subsequent Doric civilisation that built Thera in the 9th century BC. — AFP
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