The 2,700 year-old statue of an ancient kore (maiden), the name given to a type of free-standing ancient Greek sculpture depicting female figures of a young age, will be permanently on display at the Museum of Thera (Santorini).

The statue (700 BC) was found during an excavation led by archaeologist Charalambos Sigalas in 2014, in the island’s ancient cemetery. It is an impressive example of ‘monumental’ sculpture, inspired by the stone sculpture of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The kore is 2.30 m tall and was probably decorating the tomb of a young girl. Surviving Greek monumental sculpture artifacts are rare; among the most famous are the Nikandra statue of Naxos island, a lady figure which has the name of her father and husband carved on the statue’s pedestal base.

Another statue is the Lady of Auxerre, now showcased in the Louvre, an archaic Greek goddess of c. 650 - 625 BC., perhaps the Persephone herself.