Statue of Liberty Modeled on Pagan Goddess

As one of the most famous icons associated with The United States of America and the concepts of liberty and
democracy on which the country was founded, the image of Statue of Liberty has been reproduced innumerable
times on items ranging from patriotic literature to cheap souvenirs.

But few people are aware of the surprising fact that the famous Lady of Liberty is modeled closely after a Pagan
Goddess. Strange but true, and possibly startling to some, the Statue of Liberty is based on the ancient Greek
statues of the Goddess Hera.

The term "Pagan" in Latin actually means "rural" or "rustic" and was a term used by Catholic clerics after
Catholicism was established as the official state religion by the Roman Emperor Constantine. "Pagan" in this
sense referred to the tendency of people in the more remote, rural countryside to retain their beliefs in the older
Greek and Roman pantheistic religions, or other various local belief systems practiced in distant provinces of the Empire. (The Greco-Roman Pantheons are unrelated to the current-day Wiccan or Neo-Pagan societies.)

As the wife of Zeus, chief deity in the Greek Pantheon, Hera was considered the Queen of Olympus and was also revered as the Earth Mother by the Greeks for centuries. Many of the beautiful colonnaded temples from the
Classic Greek civilization, some still partly standing, were dedicated to Hera. In fact, the Olympic Torch, still used today, is lit at the Temple of Hera in Olympia, Greece prior to its journey as it carried by runners to the site of the Olympic Games.

The Statue of Liberty, sculpted by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, is modified only slightly from copies of the statue of Hera that once stood in the temple at Olympia, Greece. The stylized face has the classic Greek profile, where the forehead merges with the bridge of the nose in a nearly straight line as in the Hera Statue. The crown is also the same, with the exception of the projecting spikes. The position of the arm is one of the few variations, as it is raised vertically overhead without a bend in the elbow. But even the feet, with the open-toed sandals, are modeled after Hera's. (refer to the images here, or follow the link in the Resources section below for an easy-view slide show with comprehensive comparisons of the statues.)

The Torch (symbolizing the Light of Liberty) is directly borrowed from the ancient Torch of the Olympic Games,
which was revived for the modern Olympics, now held internationally every four years. The Olympic Torch is lit in
a ceremony at the actual temple of Hera, according to the centuries old method, using light from the Sun, with the rays concentrated by a parabolic mirror, just as used by the ancient Greeks. The official title of the statue,
bestowed by Bartholdi is "Liberty Enlightening the World".

The Crown has the same shape as the form of Hera's, an elliptical cap with the top edge raised higher in
front. In the Liberty Statue, the crown is hollow and there are open bays or windows for sightseers to look out over the harbor. Added to the top of the cap are a set of narrow triangular spikes, radiating from the center. Bartholdi borrowed the form directly from a symbol used in depictions of Apollo, the Greek Sun-god. The radiating spikes were used to represent the rays emanating from Apollo's head or crown. (refer to the image of the ancient Greek coin.)

Liberty's Garments are also Grecian: a simple tunic swathed in an ample, loose-fitting robe. The cascading folds of the robe add a dynamic element to the imposing Lady Liberty, who conveys a majestic and inspiring spirit well suited to the principles she represents.

Interestingly, Bartholdi himself gave conflicting and implausible accounts of the conception and modeling of the
statue. Initially, when asked who the model was, he said that his own mother posed for him. Several people
immediately questioned this, since his mother would have been about eighty years old at the time. He then
amended the tale, saying that when his mother grew tired while posing, he enlisted the aid of Jeanne-Emilie Baheaux de Puysieux, who was subsequently identified as his mistress! Yet the facial features are almost an exact replica of the Hera statue (probably from a cast of an inferior copy) and neither resemble his mother nor his mistress, whom he later married.

The likely cause for Bartholdi's improbable tales is that he had actually modeled the statue years earlier, in 1865 to be erected along the Suez canal. His proposal had been rejected at that time , and the concept was later revived for the Liberty Statue. This was a known fact to several notables in the art dealer's profession, yet Bartholdi, apparently embarrassed by the revelation, consistently denied the reports to his dying day.

Resources:

Slide Show of Images compiled by the author: Click Here

References:

The Glory of Hera
By Phillip Elliot Slater
Beacon Press, 1971

Images In Mind: Statues in Archaic and Classical Greek Literature and Thought
By Deborah Tarn Steiner
Edition: 2, reprint, illustrated
Published by Princeton University Press, 2002
ISBN 0691094888, 9780691094885

The Statue of Liberty revisited: making a universal symbol
By Wilton Dillon, Neil G. Kotler
Edition: illustrated
Published by Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994
Original from the University of Michigan
Digitized Sep 22, 2008
ISBN 1560982527, 9781560982524

Statue of Liberty
By Charles E. Mercer
Edition: 2, illustrated
Published by Putnam, 1985
ISBN 0399206701, 9780399206702

A Guide to the Principal Gold and Silver Coins of the Ancients
Barclay Head, D.C.L., PhD.
Fourth Edition, Oxford University Press, 1895