FAST FACTS
Name: Lady of Elche
What it is: A limestone bust
Where is it from: Elche, Spain
When it was made: About 400 to 350 BC
On a hot summer day in 1897, a farmer in Elche, a town on Spain’s Mediterranean coast, discovered a life-size painted limestone bust of a mysterious woman among a pile of apparently discarded stones. The statue – now known as La Dama de Elche or Lady of Elche – is a mixture of ancient artistic styles and may represent a goddess or priestess.
The Lady of Elche is 22 inches (56 centimeters) tall and weighs just over 143 pounds (65 kilograms). Carved from a block of limestone, the bust shows a woman richly adorned with a pointed diadem and a forehead diadem covered by a veil. The strap of the headdress ends in giant rosettes by her ears.
The woman wears a cape-like cloak fastened with a small pin; it opens at the front to reveal three necklaces of amulets. Earrings and ribbons cover the sides of her face. Traces of paint remain on her lips and parts of her face and clothes. On the back of the bust is a big holesuggesting that it may have been used as a funerary vessel to hold cremated remains.
The unique appearance of the Lady of Elche – which mixes Iberian, Greek and North African styles – contributed to accusations that the bust was a fake. In one 1995 booksuggested art historian John F. Moffitt that the bust may have been made in the late 19th century by a noted Spanish art forger Francisco Pallas and Puig. However, subsequent scientific analysis revealed that pigments on the Lady of Elche was indeed antique, and that the ashes left on the back of the bust were from one old cremation.
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While the Lady of Elche has been found to be more than 2,400 years old, experts still debate whether the sculpture was originally a bust or part of a standing figure. It is also unclear who the Lady of Elche was intended to portray. One suggestion is that she was associated Tanitthe main god of ancient Carthage, showing religious similarities between Iberian and Punic people.
However, the National Archaeological Museum says “the figure’s identity is a mystery.” The Lady of Elche is believed to have both human and divine qualities and “has most recently been interpreted as a high-born Iberian lady who was deified by her descendants.”
For more amazing archaeological finds, check out our Amazing Artifacts archives.
