
~24 min read
Encyclopedic overview
16 sectionsContents
- 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.