The Statue of Liberty was originally conceived as a Muslim peasant woman and was to have stood at the approach to the Suez Canal, a lantern in her upraised hand serving as both lighthouse and a symbol of progress.
But the sculptor, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi of France, proved unable to sell the idea to the khedive of Egypt, Ishma’il Pasha.
Bartholdi remained determined to erect a colossus on the scale of the one in ancient Rhodes.
He sailed to America with drawings of the Muslim woman transformed to the personification of Liberty. Continue reading