Letter on statuary and power. Statues as political statements

Abstract

Statuary, statue and statute all derive from the Latin verb statuere, meaning “to cause, to stand, to set up”, whose root comes from the nom status, meaning “standing, position”. However, if we decide to look for even older origins, we will find out that all these words derive from the Proto-Indo-European root stā-, meaning “to stand, set down, make or be firm".