In Gallery 4 of the British Museum stood a bust of Ramses II. It was said that the hole in the right shoulder of the statue had been caused when Napoleon attempted to remove it.
At the entrance to this gallery stood the Rosetta Stone. The French had taken only a rubbing of it before boarding a British warship and returning to Europe.
On the night she entered this world, she had seen a "reflection" in the fountain at the Louvre Museum plaza—the Pyramid beneath the sunlight. At the time, she had found it utterly unbelievable and thought she was hallucinating.
The Louvre Museum kept a pair of Nefertari's shoes. After several thousand years, though they had once been painstakingly made, they had become so worn and damaged that they could no longer be worn. Yet Pomona still saw them leading the way ahead of her, as if someone had them on their feet.
Ramses II was a long-lived pharaoh. He had eight principal wives in his lifetime, and Nefertari was his favorite. Even Hathor, the Egyptian goddess of love, had been created in her likeness.
There had once been such a case in fourth-century BC Greece. Aphrodite, the ancient Greek goddess of love, had originally been portrayed as dignified and noble, usually wearing a long gown. Yet a sculptor named Praxiteles took a different path, using a woman named Phryne as his model to sculpt an unprecedented nude Aphrodite.
She had a graceful figure, and her eyes seemed to shimmer with an enchanting, limpid radiance. She displayed the splendor of the goddess of love and beauty with heartbreaking charm. Yet the original buyer refused to accept the sculpture, because the statue was meant to be enshrined in a temple. The sculptor had no choice but to make another, clothed