The history of the bikini is a checkered one. The earliest evidence of a bikini-like costume dates back to the Chalcolithic era, as the mother-goddess of Çatalhöyük, a large ancient settlement in southern Anatolia, is depicted astride two leopards wearing garb akin to a modern bikini.[1] Two-piece garments worn by women for athletic purposes are on Greek urns and paintings dating back to 1400 BC.[8] Active women of ancient Greece wore a breastband called a mastodeton or an apodesmos, which continued to be used as an undergarment in the Middle Ages.[9] While men in ancient Greece abandoned the perizoma, partly high-cut briefs and partly loincloth, women performers and acrobats continued to wear it.[10] Artwork dating back to the Diocletian period (286-305 AD) in Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily depicts women in garments resembling bikinis in mosaics on the floor.[5][11] The images of ten women, dubbed the "Bikini Girls",[12] exercising in clothing that would pass as bikinis today, are the most replicated mosaic among the 37 million colored tiles at the site.[13] Archeological finds, especially in Pompeii, show the Roman goddess Venus wearing a bikini. A statue of Venus in a bikini was found in cupboard in the southwest corner in Casa della Venere, others were found in the front hall.[14] A statue of Venus was recovered from the tablinum of the house of Julia Felix,[15] and another from an atrium at the garden at Via Dell'Abbondanza.[16]
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