Kriophoros (Sculpture)

Standing nude figure of a youthful male carrying a ram, and attached plinth

ID:
aa_3177
Type:
Sculpture
Date:
ca. -580
Period:
High Archaic
Context:
From Thasos
Findspot:
Excavated at Thasos, Pythion, built into a medieval wall (between 1914-1920)
Region:
Sporades
Condition:
Unfinished
Scale:
Colossal
Dimensions:
H. (restored) 3.5 m; H. incl. plinth 3.6 m
Style:
High Archaic
Material:
Marble
Type:
Free-standing statue: kouros
Category:
Single monument
Form and Style

The oval plinth to which the feet are attached slopes down from back to front.

Material Description

White, coarse-grained marble (perhaps Parian)

Technique Description

The statue seems to be unfinished, but only blocked out with the use of a point.

Subject Description

The hair is more detailed than the rest of the figure (and probably reached a greater point of completion). The locks of hair radiate from the crown, eight falling down the back and four on each side of the neck at the front. The locks of hair are beaded, having been divided by ridges horizontally and vertically. A hairband (taenia) is tied around the crown, knotted at the back, with ends hanging in a mannered style down the back.

Condition Description

The statue has been broken across the chest, at the knees, and above the ankles, but has been restored, with modern inclusions at the fractures, on part of the right arm, and a piece of the left elbow.


Collection:
Thasos Archaeological Museum

Citations and Bibliography

Boardman 1978a, fig. 69; Richter 1970b, 51 no. 14, figs. 84-86, 106; GdT, 108-11, 115, figs. 51-53

Buschor 1950, 31 ff., figs. 32-34; Zervos 1936, figs. 108-10; O. Picard, BCH 45 (1921) 88, 113 ff.