Stone Breasts Survive Lightning Strike On Venus De Milo Sculpture

A pair of stone breasts survived a lightning strike in Australia that hit a Venus de Milo statue, leaving an odd bit of anatomy laying on the wet ground.

The lighting strike took place in Yarrawonga, Australia, and was witnessed by Tom Finlay. He was standing in the courtyard of Finlay’s Stonemasonry when he saw the stone breasts take the lightning strike.

“There was a clap of thunder and the sculpture blew up like a rocket-launcher had hit it,” Finlay told the NT News. “The lightning looked like a serpent. Everything disintegrated but the breasts –all that’s left is what’s under her hips.”

Finlay, the stonemasonry head, said it seemed like the lightning was a precision hit on the nearly 5-foot-tall structure that he hand carved. The lightning made the 66-pound stone breasts fall nearly 26 feet from the column where the statue was placed, but somehow they hit the ground intact.

Finlay said he isn’t sure what he’s going to do with the giant stone breasts now.

“It’s still a bit raw,” he said. “I’ll leave the statue the way it is to show the force of nature … I might mount [the breasts] and hang them in my office.”

The statue was created a little extra… generous… than the normal Venus de Milo model, the UK’s Register reported. Finlay said he wanted to pay tribute to the women of the area by depicting the goddess in more voluptuous form than the ancient Greek Venus de Milo.

Though the stone breasts survive the lightning strike, the message may have been sent to Finlay to stick to the model next time. The ancient Greeks took lightning strikes as a sign of displeasure from the gods.