It's impolite to ask a lady her age: One of the most famous pieces of ancient Greek art may be a recent Swiss fake.(Features)(Books)

From: The Christian Science Monitor | Date: April 4, 2002 | Copyright information

Byline: Stephen J. Lyons

Everything that is wrong and right about archeological interpretation and its often subjective motives rests within a 16-centimeter-tall statuette called the Snake Goddess. Long regarded as the most precious artifact of 16th-century BC Minoan art, she has minded her own business for the past 84 years in hallowed residence at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. But the snake-handling goddess's origin - her archaeological "findspot" - remains unverified.

Questions over her origin commenced almost from the beginning in 1914 when curator Lacey ...

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