Iran to lend statue of Penelope to Italian exhibition

TEHRAN -- Iran plans to lend to Italy for display in an exhibition the marble statue of Penelope, which was excavated in Persepolis in 1945.

 

“The statue will be put on display at the exhibition for six months based on an agreement with the Italian government,” the director of Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization, Masud Soltanifar, said in a press conference held on March 17.

 

“Reciprocating, Italy will lend four historical statues to Iran for a showcase after the exhibition ends,” he added.

 

No more details were given about the exhibitions.

 

The life-size statue, which is in the Severe Style, was excavated in Persepolis by the Oriental Institute of Chicago.

 

It is surmised that the artifact was brought back to the Persian capital by Xerxes after the sacking of Athens.

  

It lay scattered in three fragments in the ruins of the Persepolis Treasury, a headless torso lying in Corridor 31, with its shattered right hand in Hall 38.

 

The circumstances of discovery recall the destruction of Persepolis by Alexander the Great in spring 330 BC. Before torching the palace, Alexander removed the gold stored in the Treasury and allowed his army to plunder the rest of its contents.

 

The statue is currently on display at the National Museum of Iran. 

 

Penelope is a character of Homer’s Odyssey, one of the two great epic poems of ancient Greek literature. Penelope is the wife of the main character, the king of Ithaca, Odysseus (also known as Ulysses), and the daughter of Icarius and his wife Eurynome. 

 

She waited twenty years for the final return of her husband from the Trojan War, while she had hard times in refusing marriage proposals from several princes for four years after the fall of Troy. For this reason, she is often regarded as a symbol of connubial fidelity.

 

MMS/YAW

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