Kroisos Kouros

Anavyssos Kouros, ca. 530 BC.

The Kroisos Kouros (Ancient Greek: κοῦρος) is a marble kouros from Anavyssos (Ανάβυσσος) in Attica which functioned as a grave marker for a fallen young warrior named Kroisos (Κροῖσος).^[1]^[2]

Overview[]

The free-standing sculpture strides forward with the "archaic smile" playing slightly on his face. The sculpture is dated to c. 540–515 BC and stands 1.95 meters high.^[3] It is now situated in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens (inv. no. 3851).

The inscription on the base of the statue reads:

ΣΤΕΘΙ ∶ ΚΑΙ ΟΙΚΤΙΡΟΝ ΚΡΟΙΣΟ
ΠΑΡΑ ΣΕΜΑ ΘΑΝΟΝΤΟΣ ΗΟΝ
ΠΟΤ’ ΕΝΙ ΠΡΟΜΑΧΟΙΣ ∶ ΟΛΕΣΕ
ΘΟΡΟΣ ∶ ΑΡΕΣ

"Stop and show pity beside the marker of Kroisos, dead, whom, when he was in the front ranks, raging Ares destroyed".^[4]

The Kroisos Kouros is central to two ongoing archeological debates: first, whether kouroi represented specific young men or were generic representations of idealized archetypes which might not actually resemble a specific person commemorated, and thus are symbolic representations embodying the ideal of the male warrior en promáchois (ἐν προμάχοις), "in the front line" of battle, not naturalistic ones; and second the authenticity of the Getty kouros, which bears a falsified provenance and displays a suspicious similarity to the Kroisos kouros.^[5]

References[]

^ Fred Kleiner (1 January 2013). Gardner's Art through the Ages: The Western Perspective. Cengage Learning. pp. 113–. ISBN 978-1-133-95481-1.
^ The Anavysos Kouros Alex. Philadelpheus The Annual of the British School at Athens Vol. 36, (1935/1936) , pp. 1-4 Published by: British School at Athens Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30096873
^ Judith M. Barringer (31 December 2014). The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Greece. Cambridge University Press. pp. 334–. ISBN 978-1-139-99174-2.
^ Robinson, David M., Gorham Phillips Stevens, and Eugene Vanderpool. "An Inscribed Kouros Base." Hesperia Supplements 8 (1949): 361-484. Accessed July 20, 2021. doi:10.2307/1353909.
^ Marion True. The Getty Kouros: Background on the Problem, in The Getty Kouros Colloquium, 1993, p. 13.