Zeus and 5731 Zeus Asteroid - London, England, UK
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 51° 31.131 W 000° 07.573
30U E 699376 N 5711441
This sculpture is in the British Museum.
Waymark Code: WMDG3R
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 01/11/2012
Views: 4
The British Museum does not charge an admission fee and does allow flash-free photography.
This bust of Zeus, the Supreme Greek God, depicts him barechested with long curly hair and a curly beard. The placard accompanying the work indicates that it is 2nd century Roman and was found at the Roman Emperor Hadrian's Tivloi villa.
Wikipedia (
visit link) adds that Zeus:
"ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter , Hindu counterpart is Indra and Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.
Zeus was the child of Cronus and Rhea, and the youngest of his siblings. In most traditions he was married to Hera, although, at the oracle of Dodona, his consort was Dione: according to the Iliad, he is the father of Aphrodite by Dione.[2] He is known for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many godly and heroic offspring, including Athena, Apollo and Artemis, Hermes, Persephone (by Demeter), Dionysus, Perseus, Heracles, Helen of Troy, Minos, and the Muses (by Mnemosyne); by Hera, he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Hebe and Hephaestus."
The brief Wikipedia article (
visit link) about the asteroid reads:
"5731 Zeus (1988 VP4) is an Apollo asteroid and Near-Earth object discovered on November 4, 1988 by C. S. Shoemaker at Palomar Observatory. Based on its observed brightness and assumed albedo it is estimated to have a diameter between 2.1 and 4.7 km."