The word ‘iconic’ has been too popular lately. So popular that it no longer has any meaning, These days it means ‘very popular’. The earlier and more powerful meaning was ‘a unique powerful symbol’ coming from the meaning of an icon, as representing a god.
The statue of liberty is deservedly an icon of freedom. Both in its graphic form and because of its history.
I have long wondered how such a beautiful symbol evolved. A woman draped with a torch in her uplifted hand and a crown on her head It strikes me as too powerful to come from the head of an artist.
Well it didn’t. It came from an ancient and rich culture. Israeli archaeologists have found a miniature of the statue of liberty on a ship that sunk near the coast of Israel 1600 years ago. Near a roman town. The image is on the right. This is where our statue of liberty came from, thousands of years later.