This trail starts here

This limestone sculpture of a reclining woman is identified with Electra, a character in Greek mythology. In Greek, Electra means “shining” or “bright” and is derived from the word for “amber”.

This piece of unknown origin is the first sculpture erected on campus in c.1956, near the entrance to the Fischbach building which housed the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. Electricity is a fundamental form of energy observable in positive and negative forms that can occur naturally (as in lightning). The reclining woman of the statue, leaning on her right arm, originally held lightning — the symbol for electricity — in her broken left hand, which rests on her knee. Originally naked, the contours of her clothes were added subsequently – seemingly to obscure her nudity.