La Parisienne (fresco)

La Parisienne, also called the Minoan Lady, is a fragment of the Camp Stool Fresco from the palace of Knossos on Crete, dating to the Final Palatial Period, roughly 1450 to 1300 BC, and now held in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum. It shows a female figure in profile wearing a sacral knot at the back of the neck; her larger size relative to other figures on the same fresco, together with a partly preserved twin figure of the same size, has led scholars to read the scene as two goddesses, or a priestess and a goddess, presiding over a ceremonial banquet with libations. The fragment was excavated in 1901 by the British archaeologist Arthur Evans, who had it restored by Emile Gillieron; critics have argued Gillieron's restoration went well beyond the archaeological evidence, though later research has shown Minoan cosmetic and beautification objects were genuinely in use at Knossos, Zakros and Pylos. The French archaeologist and art historian Edmond Pottier gave the fragment its name because he felt the figure resembled a contemporary Parisian woman. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/