Angelitos Athena, Marble statue in Acropolis Museum, Greece.
Angelitos Athena is a damaged marble statue of Athena, preserved as a torso 0.77 m tall and now without its head. She wears the archaic peplos and the aegis with a gorgoneion at the centre of her chest. Her raised right arm survives to the wrist and once held a spear; of the left arm only the shoulder and traces of the hand at her waist remain.
Made around 480–470 BC, the Angelitos Athena is the earliest known depiction of an armed Athena and an example of the severe style that developed after the Persian Wars. It was found in the Perserschutt on the Acropolis, near the Kritios Boy and the Moschophoros, and is now in the Acropolis Museum, inv. 140.
The preserved Doric column carrying the statue bears a verse inscription: "Angelitos dedicated me. Venerable Athena, may this gift be pleasing to you. Euenor made it." It names both the dedicator and the sculptor Euenor, a pairing that is itself debated among scholars.
The statue is located in the Archaic Acropolis Gallery of the Acropolis Museum and is accessible through the main exhibition route. Visitors will find it in a dedicated display area alongside other archaic works from the same period.
The statue originally stood upon a Doric column bearing inscriptions from both Angelitos the dedicator and Euenor the sculptor. These inscriptions now provide valuable evidence of artistic and social practices in ancient Athenian society.
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