The Venus de Milo is an ancient Greek marble statue of a woman, probably the goddess Aphrodite, carved in the Hellenistic period. It was found in 1820 by a farmer on the island of Milos in the Aegean Sea, and was soon acquired by the French and presented to King Louis XVIII, who gave it to the Louvre in Paris. The statue lost both arms, and many scholars have proposed how they were once posed, without agreement. An inscribed base associated with the find named the sculptor as Alexandros of Antioch, though the base was lost. Admired for its elegant proportions and the drapery that slips around the hips, the statue became one of the most famous works of ancient art and an emblem of classical beauty.
Before and after
- 147 BCERome destroys Carthage
- from 146 BCE to 330 CERoman Greece
- 145 BCEBirth of Sima Qian
- 141 BCEPaper
- 2nd century BCEVenus de Milo
- 139 BCEZhang Qian's mission opens the Silk Road
- 134 BCETiberius Gracchus is murdered and the Republic enters its crisis
- c. 131 BCEHipparchus discovers the precession of the equinoxes
- from 111 BCE to 105 BCEJugurthine War
More in Art, literature & culture
- c. 3,000 BCECuneiform
- c. 1,500 BCERigveda
- from c. 1,200 BCE to 150 BCEPhoenician script
- c. 750s BCEThe Homeric epics are composed
- from 448 BCE to 433 BCEConstruction of the Parthenon begins
- 196 BCERosetta Stone
The era
This moment belongs to the Ancient civilizations (3,200 BCE to 500 CE), writing, cities and empires.