Test Your Knowledge #5
In what famous Roman city was an ancient statue of a goddess wearing a bikini discovered, and who was the Roman goddess? 
In tracing the origins of the bikini, Wikipedia reports the following:
The modern bikini was introduced by French engineer Louis Réard and fashion designer Jacques Heim in Paris in 1946. Réard was a car engineer but by 1946 he was running his mother’s lingerie boutique near Les Folies Bergères in Paris. Heim was working on a new kind of beach costume. It comprised two pieces, the bottom large enough to cover its wearer’s navel. In May 1946, he advertised it as the world’s “smallest bathing suit.” Réard named his swimsuit the “bikini,” taking the name from the Bikini Atoll, one of a series of islands in the South Pacific where testing on the new atomic bomb was occurring that summer.
If you’ll notice, the Wikipedia entry specifies “the modern bikini.” It also says, however, that artistic depictions of bikini-like garments date back to antiquity.
To learn the correct answer, see below.
Answer: The ancient city was Pompeii, which was destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. The bikini wearer was Venus, the Roman goddess associated with love, beauty and fertility. And, perhaps, tanning?.