What she unearthed was a figurine standing just 14.3 centimeters tall (about 5.6 inches). Carved from local steatite (soapstone), it had been darkened by millennia of smoke and soil to a deep olive-black. The figure was naked, with arms folded just below a pronounced, bulbous chest. The hips were wide, the legs tapered to a point, and the face was a blank, polished shield—no eyes, no mouth, only a subtle ridge for a nose.
After the war, she returned to Lesbos a broken, silent woman. She no longer carved idols. She kept goats. She died in 1952 in a small clinic in Mytilene, the island’s capital. The cause of death listed: "exhaustion and melancholia." She was 54. idol of lesbos margo sullivan