I was lucky to have taken an entire class on Ancient Italian Art & Architecture the semester before I went to Italy. So when I turned a corner in the Vatican Museum and saw this statue I was very excited. This statue was re-discovered in 1506 but is thousands of years older. It is unknown if this was an original Hellenistic Greek Statue, or if it still dates from that period but is a copy based on a lost bronze version of the statue. It is so old that the famous ancient historian, Pliny the Elder, even referenced the statue on the 1st century AD, and even then it was an old statue.
The statue depicts Laocoön, a Trojan priest and seer who warned not to accept the wooden horse that the greeks had left behind. The greek gods Athena and Poseidon sent sea serpents to kill Laocoön and his sons in retribution for his warning.
Museum Monday is an every other week series about museum news, objects, and reviews.
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