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kouros
EntityQ937330· pop 32· linked from 135 articles

Also known as kouroi

thumb|200px|Kroisos Kouros,

~24 min read

Encyclopedic overview

16 sections
Contents
  • Etymology
  • Purpose
  • Origin and evolution
  • Attributes and meaning
  • Development
  • Sounion group
  • Orchomenos–Thera group
  • Tenea–Volomandra group
  • Melos group
  • Anavysos–Ptoon 12 group
  • Ptoon 20 group
  • See also
  • Notes
  • References
  • Sources
  • External links

thumb|200px|Kroisos Kouros,

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 presence in many other Ancient Greek territories such as Sicily. Such statues are found across the Greek-speaking world; the preponderance of these were found in sanctuaries of Apollo with more than one hundred from the sanctuary of Apollo Ptoion, Boeotia, alone. These free-standing sculptures were typically marble, but the form is also rendered in limestone, wood, bronze, ivory and terracotta. They are typically life-sized, though early colossal examples are up to 10 feet/3 metres tall.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “kouros” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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