The body of the statue is preserved up to a bit lower than the knees. The head and arms (both carved from the same block of marble) are also broken. The right arm is broken from the middle of the biscep, while the left from the middle of the forearm. Small breaks and chipping are evident sporadically on the surface of the marble, especially along the ridges of the folds of the garments. The back side is worked with precision. It depicts a standing, smaller than life-size, frontal female figure. The weight of the body falls on the left leg, while the right is slightly bent. The right arm was brought downwards (a remnant of a puntello is preserved on the surface of the right thigh), while the left was stretched forward. She wears a chiton, a peronatris (on the surface of the marble on the right shoulder there is a circular bulge at the point of the fastening of the garment – pin?), and a wide long himation that covers most of the body. The statue follows faithfully the so-called ”Argos/Salamis Muse” statuary type. The sleeved chiton and peronatris are both bound high, immediately below the breasts (the wide belt is visible on the right front part of the torso, left uncovered by the himation), while the himation forms a diagonal cylindrical mass from approximately the height of the right armpit to the left shoulder, from where it continues to the back, while its edge falls on the left arm bent at the elbow and extended forward. Stylistically, the statue finds its best parallels in works dated to ca. the 160s (cf. e.g. the female statue from Gortyna, Filges 1997, 275, cat. no. 162, middle Antonine period), although here the work is a bit “softer”. Good quality of workmanship. The cylindrical inscribed base on which the figure stood (see above) identifies the young woman with the priestess of Artemis Orthia, Claudia Seteris; the statuette was commissioned after the successful tenure of her priesthood and dedicated by a state council of elders (οἱ τᾶς Οὐπησίας ἱεροί γέροντες), charged with overseeing the functioning of the sanctuary. In the outstretched, now broken, left hand she probably held an incense box (two hands holding incense boxes in the same material and scale have been found inside the oikos of Artemis - see Orlandos 1962, 112ζ, pl. 118β; G.I. Despinis, “Ανδριάς ιέρειας εκ Μεσσήνης”, in Χαριστήριον εις Αναστάσιον Κ. Ορλάνδον ΙΙ, Athens 1966, 235, pl. XXXIXα and γ; Themelis 1994, 117, pl. 22; for priestesses holding incense boxes see also P. Konstantinidis, “Archaeology of Anaphe (1100 B.C.-A.D. 600). Part 2”, Ostraka XXX [2021], 102-103 in cat. no. 14).
A. Orlandos, “Μεσσήνη”, Ergon 1962, 128, fig. 153; A. Orlandos, “Ανασκαφή Μεσσήνης”, Prakt 1962, 112ε, pl. 116α-β; G. Daux, BCH 87 (1963), 774, fig. 9; SEG 23 [1968], 217; RE Suppl. XV (1978), 146 s.v. Messene (Μ. Meyer; Hadrianic); F. Felten, “Heiligtümer oder Märkte?”, AntK 26 (1983), 86, fig. 2; N. Kaltsas, Αρχαία Μεσσήνη, Athens 1989, no. 25 (without fig.; 1st c. CE); P. Themelis, “Artemis Ortheia at Messene. The Epigraphical and Archaeological Evidence”, in R. Hägg ed., Ancient Greek Cult Practice from the Epigraphical Evidence, Stockholm 1994, 111, 115, 117, pl. 23b; A. Filges, Standbilder jugendlicher Göttinnen, Köln-Weimar-Wien 1997, 99-100, 101, 168, 170, 190, 192 note 905, 204, 205, 230, 273, cat. no. 152, fig. 152 (“Muse” of the “Argos/Salamis” type; middle Antonine period); E.A. Chlepa, Μεσσήνη. Το Αρτεμίσιο και οι οίκοι της δυτικής πτέρυγας του Ασκληπιείου, Athens 2001, 34, fig. 10[Σ1]; P. Themelis, Αρχαία Μεσσήνη, Ιστορία - Άνθρωποι – Μνημεία, Athens 2010, 321; P. Themelis, Αρχαία Μεσσήνη, Athens 2014, 143, fig. 163.
