The lion is substantially complete; only the lower jaw and front legs are missing; its eyes were probably once inlaid with glass.

[2] The statue stood on top of a funerary monument that is of a style fashionable in 350 BC in Halikarnassos, a centre that was only a day away by boat.

[6] The Lion of Knidos was first seen by a British person in 1858 when the archaeologist Richard Popplewell Pullan walked the cliffs near what is now the Turkish town of Datça.

[1] The statue had crowned an 18-metre high funerary monument, which had commanding views over the sea and may have once acted as a navigation aid for passing sailors.

Smith was able to replace and move each of the remaining stones which allowed Pullan, who was a trained architect, to sketch what is thought to be a good reproduction of what the whole structure would have looked like.