16: Metropolitan Kouros

Picking up where episode 15 left off, we dive into the emergence of sculpture in Ancient Greece. We look closely at one exemplary piece, a marble statue of a youth from ancient Athens, the so-called “Metropolitan Kouros” of ca. 590–580 B.C. We’ll see how the early Greek kouros type is borrowed directly from Egyptian statuary. We also explore sculpture’s original function and message in Ancient Greece plus the social context in which sculpture develops.