When a French politician remarked that a monument should be raised in honour of American independence at a dinner party in 1865 he probably didn't imagine that the result would become an international icon of freedom. ...

Canadian-Israeli film director Simcha Jacobovici holds two nails during a press conference on April 12, 2011. Jacobovici believes that the two nails discovered in a Jerusalem cave were used in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Jacobovici claims that the nails were tracked to an archeology laboratory in Tel Aviv, and though cannot be 100 per cent certain that they are the nails used in the crucifixion of Jesus, he claims if “you put two and two together and they seem to imply that these are the nails”. Experts at the Israel Antiquities Authority though cast doubt on Jacobovici's claims, and suggest that nails are commonly found in such locations. (Photo by Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images)

Buddha statues with a variety of faces shapes and unique characters at Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva Temple on January 11, 2012 in Bintan Island, Indonesia. 500 statues are situated inside the temple featuring Ksitigarbha Hodhisattva, known as the Bodhisattva of Hell because of his vow not to achieve Buddha-hood until “all the hells are empty”. (Photo by Yuli Seperi/Getty Images)

A sculpture entitled “Powerless Structures, Fig.101” designed by Danish artist Michael Elmgreen and Norwegian artist Ingar Dragset is unveiled on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square on February 23, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

Tourists and journalists stand next to a newly displayed statue of pharaoh Amenhotep III and his wife Tiye (Down) in Egypt's temple city of Luxor on March 23, 2014. Two colossal statues of pharaoh Amenhotep III were unveiled by archaeologists today in their original sites in the funerary temple of the king, on the west bank of the Nile in Luxor, adding to the existing two famous ancient Memnon colossi. (Photo by Khaled Desouki/AFP Photo)

Dove Jo (L) and HJ Kim kiss beneath a 26-foot statue inspired by the iconic kiss between a nurse and a sailor in Times Square August 12, 2010 in New York City. Alfred Eisenstaedt took the famous photograph on V-J Day marking the end of World War II. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Maria Ines Banegas portraying “La Pirata” (The Pirate) takes part in a human living statues contest in Buenos Aires, Argentina, September 24, 2016. (Photo by Enrique Marcarian/Reuters)

In this aerial file photo taken on Tuesday, October 31, 2017, a woman walks past a statue of Soviet Union founder Vladimir Lenin at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan. The thousands of statues of Vladimir Lenin spread across the vast region bring to mind poet Vladimir Mayakovsky's ringing line of devotion: “Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live”. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)