It was a fantastic experience of exploration and discovery: you see photographs of these dramatic statues emerging from the murky water, and there the same statues are, five metres high and right in front of you.
Hired by private administrators of the seized estate, part of which is now a theme park (imagine mixing "Jurassic Park" and "Scarface" into a theme), Mr. Montoya rebuilt the same statues after looters tore them apart searching for hidden booty.
"It's definitely the same statue," he said.
As soon as we saw the museum photo we were quite sure that it's the same statue".
It is also, of course, not the same statue you will encounter on a visit to the once-uncrowded site.
At www.Easterncurio.com, I even saw the same statue of Mao in a car, described as Item No. D1S0041.
In the same chapel, before the same statue, something happens to Kiti Mendoza, a Filipina nurse who has treated the injured woman in hospital after she falls in a visionary swoon.
The group has recruited Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to assist with fund-raising, but Mr. Emanuel was forced to suspend his efforts amidst a teacher strike, leaving Priorities without a rainmaker of the same statue as Mr. Rove.
This only failed me once, in Cluj-Napoca in Romania, where every postcard in every shop showed the same statue of a man wearing a very large hat sitting on a horse.
His jealous, tempestuous nature is almost as legendary as his great works, which include his statue of 'David', which is on display in the Accademia, Florence (a replica of the same statue stands outside the Palazzo Vecchio), his 'Pietà' in the Vatican Museums, Rome, and his decorative schemes for the Sistine Chapel.
Back then, you could say to a friend, "Let's meet at Starbucks," and you and your friend would know precisely what you meant--the way you can say, "Let's meet at the Statue of Liberty," and be confident you are both talking about exactly the same Statue of Liberty.
