On 8th April 1820 the Venus de Milo, a Hellenistic statue was found on the Aegean island of Melos by a peasant named Yorgos. It is believed to depict Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sexual love and physical beauty. Venus is her Roman name. Although the French bought the statue from the Turkish rulers of Melos for the price of a nice herd of goats, the ruins of an ancient theatre near which the statue was found was at that time owned by Crown Prince Ludwig I of Bavaria. Ludwig insisted that since the statue had been found on his land, it belonged to him. Unsurprisingly the French disagreed. The sculpture dates back to about 130 BC, and is thought to be the work of Alexandros of Antioch, an itinerant Greek song writer. On the subject of songs, on 8 April 1967 in Vienna, Sandie Shaw won the 12th Eurovision Song Contest with the very catchy "Puppet on a String" – surely a pinnacle in English culture.
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