The large, grave statue of a youth from

Attica Attica (, ''Attikḗ'' (Ancient Greek) or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the entire Athens metropolitan area, which consists of the city of Athens, the capital city, capital of Greece and the core cit ...

known as the ''Munich Kouros'' is located in the

Glyptothek The Glyptothek () is a museum in Munich, Germany, which was commissioned by the Bavarian King Ludwig I of Bavaria, Ludwig I to house his collection of Ancient Greek art, Greek and Roman art, Roman sculptures (hence γλυπτο- ''glypto-'' "sculp ...

Munich, Germany Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

, under inventory number 169. The Kouros was acquired by the Glyptothek in 1910.

History

The Munich kouros is one of the earliest examples of the Ptoon 12 group, and therefore dates to around a decade before the creation of the

Siphnian Treasury The Siphnian Treasury was a building at the Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek cult centre of Delphi, erected to host the offerings of the polis, or city-state, of Sifnos, Siphnos. It was one of a number of treasuries lining the "Sacred Way", the proc ...

frieze in 525 BC. It originally stood in Athens, but was taken down and buried relatively soon after – perhaps in 480 BC by the Persian army during the

destruction of Athens The destruction of Athens, took place between 480 and 479 BC, when Athens was captured and subsequently destroyed by the Achaemenid Empire. A prominent Greek city-state, it was attacked by the Persians in a two-phase offensive, amidst which the ...

. After its rediscovery, it was acquired in 1910 by the Munich Glyptothek. It was said to have been unearthed in

Description

The Munich kouros is made of

Parian marble Parian marble is a fine-grained, semi translucent, and pure-white marble quarried during the classical antiquity, classical era on the Greece, Greek List of islands of Greece, island of Paros in the Aegean Sea. A subtype, referred to as Parian ' ...

, and is 2.08 metres high (2.11 m including the plinth). The surface of the stone has been stained red-brown from being buried in iron-rich soil. The statue with its heavy proportions and the short hair portrays an athletic ideal. The face is full and round-oval, and in the side view it reaches a depth unknown in older statues. The

archaic smile The archaic smile was used by sculptors in Archaic Greece, especially in the second quarter of the 6th century BCE, possibly to suggest that their subject was alive and infused with a sense of well-being. One of the most famous examples of the arch ...

typical of statues of the time, plays around the lips. The eyes are almond-shaped and, in contrast to older statues, the ears are realistically reproduced. The face is framed by three-dimensional, hanging spiral curls that split over the middle of the forehead, unlike earlier

kouroi Kouros (, , plural kouroi) is the modern term given to free-standing Ancient Greek sculptures that depict nude male youths. They first appear in the Archaic period in Greece and are prominent in Attica and Boeotia, with a less frequent presenc ...

which have shoulder-length hair. The broad shoulders are on the same level. The freely worked out arms hang down parallel to the body, the forearms are angled slightly forward, the hands clenched into fists. Only in the area of the inside of the fist were the forearms connected to the body by means of small marble bridges. The treatment of the back, with its schematic furrows which indicate different muscle parts running from the backbone to the flanks as well as the shoulder blades, is based on older models. The left leg is placed forward, the right step back slightly, without reproducing a motive for movement. The position of the legs hardly affects the design of the pelvis, which only imperceptibly indicates that the left side is raised or the right is lowered. Due to its stylistic features, the kouros is dated around 540–30 BC. He is close to the

Kroisos Kouros The Kroisos Kouros () is a marble kouros from Anavyssos (Ανάβυσσος) in Attica which functioned as a grave marker for a fallen young warrior named Kroisos (). Overview The free-standing sculpture strides forward with the " archaic smile ...

, who also comes from Attica.

References

Bibliography

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External links

Munich Kouros in the Museum of Classical Archaeology Databases
{{Commonscat, Munich Kouros Archaic Greek sculptures 6th-century BC Greek sculptures Kouroi Collection of the Glyptothek Greek artifacts outside Greece Archaeological discoveries in Attica