Venus statue on display
Kevin Frayer  /  AP
The Venus figure is displayed at the Israel Museum on Wednesday. A winged Eros as a pudgy child riding a dolphin supports the left leg.
updated 3/30/2005 5:19:54 PM ET 2005-03-30T22:19:54





With locks of hair curling around the collarbone of the headless sculpture, the figure is modeled after a stance called the "timid Venus," particularly striking because the sculpture's missing hands reveal parts of her female body that the artist intended to partially hide. A winged Eros as a pudgy child riding a dolphin supports her left leg.

Archaeologist Gideon Foerster said the half-ton statue stood for 400 years. He and his colleagues believe the Venus was sculpted in the town of Aphrodisias in modern Turkey.

Dudi Mevorach, chief curator of the museum's Roman, Hellenistic and Byzantine exhibits, said the statue has the best-preserved color of any Roman-era sculptures discovered in the world.

"The Christian society in ancient Beit Shean must have had tolerant rulers and administrators who chose not to tear down the pagan statues while their contemporaries removed them in most other places," Mevorach said.



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