This sculpture is located at the Vatican Museum. It is a larger than life marble work depicting the goddess standing and wearing classical robes. She seems to be offering a document with her left hand while holding a staff to the ground with her rightA museum placard indicates that this is a 2nd century AD copy of a late Hellenic original which in turn was derived from a piece created by an artist from the Phidias' school in the second half of the 5th century BC.
Wikipedia (
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"Hera ... is the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow, lion and the peacock were considered sacred to her. Hera's mother is Rhea and her father Cronus.
Portrayed as majestic and solemn, often enthroned, and crowned with the polos (a high cylindrical crown worn by several of the Great Goddesses), Hera may bear a pomegranate in her hand, emblem of fertile blood and death and a substitute for the narcotic capsule of the opium poppy. Scholar of Greek mythology Walter Burkert writes in Greek Religion, "Nevertheless, there are memories of an earlier aniconic representation, as a pillar in Argos and as a plank in Samos."
Hera was known for her jealous and vengeful nature against Zeus's lovers and offspring, but also against mortals who crossed her, such as Pelias. Paris also earned Hera's hatred by choosing Aphrodite as the most beautiful goddess."
As for the asteroid, Wikipedia (
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"103 Hera is a moderately large main-belt asteroid that was discovered by Canadian-American astronomer James Craig Watson on September 7, 1868,[5] and named after Hera, queen and fifth in power of the Olympian gods in Greek mythology. It is an S-type asteroid with a silicate surface composition.
Photometric observations made in 2010 at the Organ Mesa Observatory at Las Cruces, New Mexico, and the Hunters Hill Observatory at Ngunnawal, Australian Capital Territory, give a synodic rotation period of 23.740 ± 0.001 hours. The bimodal light curve shows a maximum brightness variation of 0.45 ± 0.03 in magnitude.
Measurements made with the IRAS observatory give a diameter of 91.58 ± 4.14 km and a geometric albedo of 0.19 ± 0.02. By comparison, the MIPS photometer on the Spitzer Space Telescope gives a diameter of 88.30 ± 8.51 km and a geometric albedo of 0.20 ± 0.04. When the asteroid was observed occulting a star, the results showed a diameter of 89.1 ± 1.1 km."