Sleeping beauty

Magnet #677 - Malta's Sleeping Lady

So, Save the World Couple went to Malta for their "post-wedding vacation," and brought this back for me.

I know, I know - I had to look up where Malta is on the map, too. They fell in love with the place, and are already trying to figure out when they'll go back.

So, the Sleeping Lady can be found at the National Museum of Archaeology. She's one of the most sacred treasures of Malta - having found her in one of the rooms of the prehistoric Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, which is this underground cave thing that they accidentally stumbled upon in 1902 and excavated. Now it's a UNESCO site.

The level of detail on this magnet is amazing, but I'm betting it's nothing compared to the real thing. Especially when you take into account that the Sleeping Lady's like 5,000 years old! For realz, yo.

No one really knows what her purpose was - she's a fat little thing, and some think that she symbolizes death, or that her sheer size indicates fertility, or that she's a priestess or goddess who induces and/or interprets the dreams of her followers.

Personally, except for the fact that they have other pieces that feature her, I totally think it could have just been some guy who really loved his wife, and made some cool clay statuette of her sleeping. What?

So I picked this for tonight, because of two reasons. One, because it's Save the World Brother-in-Law's birthday. And two, because we ate our weight in delicious meats at Fogo de Chao tonight, and now I'm totally in a food coma.