May 9: Murals, Reading Terminal, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

2023-05-09 324 The True Story of a Stone (2023), Lenka Clayton; PAFA, Philadelphia

9. Her dismembered form was buried in a deep hole three miles from the ocean. She lay covered in earth for an unknown number of years. Avive her, a war broke out between Greece and Turkey.
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10. In July 1827, an American naval officer named Commodore Patterson who was on an anti-pirating mission in the Mediterranean Sea landed his ship, the USS Constitution nearby. He was approached by four hungry and war-ravaged Greek soldiers who knew where Demeter was buried. They sold her secret to Patterson.
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11. He sent 25 sailors to retrieve Demeter. They tied her 5-ton form with ropes and dragged her across the sand to the ship.
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12. As the sailors worked a hysterical local man ran up to them reporting that he had just seen a statue in a nearby church miraculously weep. He begged the sailors to leave Demeter where she lay. Commodore Patterson dismissed him as "superstitious, childish, and absurd."
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13. One sailor fled in panic and was left behind on the beach and was never seen again.
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14. Demeter spent one year tightly packed inj sawdust, tossed about in the cargo hold of the USS Constitution as it heaved its way across the Atlantic Ocean.