Kay Chacon, age 16, of Marion, Ohio, for her question:

WHAT IS THE WINGED VICTORY?

One of the most famous statues in the world is a beautiful Greek sculpture called the Winged Victory. It now stands in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.

The Winged Victory was discovered in 1863 on the island of Samothrace in the Aegean Sea. The statue was in many fragments but they were put together. The head and arms were never located. In 1950 its right hand was found and reunited with the statue.

The statue was originally set up by the Greeks to honor Nike, goddess of victory and messenger of Zeus and Athena.

No one knows who made the statue, or when. Some scholars say that it might have been made around 300 B.C., while other scholars place its date in the late 100s B.C.

The Winged Victory is one of the finest examples of sculpture of the Hellenistic period.