Found by chance in a fisherman’s nets, the Lady of Kalimnos became the Greek island’s greatest archaeological treasure.
A monumental bronze statue, found in 1994 by a fisherman on the Greek island of Kalimnos, in the Dodecanese, is today considered one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the region.
The call Lady of Kalymnosa female figure over two thousand years old, which experts identify as the portrait of a real woman from the Hellenistic period, it was found by chance, at the bottom of the Aegean Sea, trapped in fishing nets, among fish and algae.
Kalimnos, traditionally known as the sponge islandhad already given to fishermen unusual findsbut nothing comparable to this almost intact bronze figure, which had remained submerged for centuries and covered in marine encrustations.
The Lady of Kalimnos has a taller than a real person and weighs about 300 kilos. It represents a mature woman, dressed in an ancient Greek tunic and covered by a fringed cloak.
The posture is serene and solemn: one hand rests on the hip, while the other holds a veil close to the chest. The face, although eyeless, retains a realism that reveals the sculptor’s mastery.
Unlike many figures in ancient art, the statue does not appear to represent a goddess or a mythological heroine. You aged featuresthe serious expression and the details of the clothing point to a individualized portraittypical of the artistic evolution of the Hellenistic period, when sculptors began to move away from classical ideals of perfection to explore naturalism and personal identity.
The dating of the work remains uncertain. Some experts place it in the 4th century BC, others in the 3rd century BC or at the end of the 2nd century BC. The origin of the figure also remains unknown.
“We don’t know the origin of the Lady of Kalimnos”, says the professor Nikos Kaltsasformer director of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, .
The most accepted explanation is that the statue was part of a ship’s cargo which sank off Kalimnos. It could have been being transported to a buyer in Italy, Alexandria or other Hellenistic territory when the vessel sank.
After being recovered, the piece was sent to Athens, where it was studied and restored. For years it was exhibited at the National Archaeological Museum, becoming one of the most important works in the bronze collection.
In 2009, with the opening of the new archaeological museum in Pothia, capital of Kalimnos, the statue returned to the island. Today she occupies a central place in the main room—not as a goddess, but as what experts believe she was: the Portrait of a real woman whose identity was lost more than two thousand years ago.
