Munich Kouros

In the years this statue was carved, around 540 to 530 BC, Athens was ruled by the tyrant Peisistratos, and the great families of Attica, the countryside around the city, still marked their graves with costly marble figures. This youth is one of them, a grave statue from Attica, and at just over two metres he stands well above a man's height.

Set him beside the youth from Tenea in this room, carved about 20 years earlier, and the change is easy to see. This body is heavier and more muscular. The hair no longer falls to the shoulders. It is shorter, with spiral curls hanging around the face and parting over the middle of the forehead. Scholars compare the statue closely with the Kroisos kouros, another Attic grave figure now in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

The Glyptothek acquired it in 1910, long after its founder King Ludwig's day. The red-brown tint across the marble comes from the iron-rich soil it lay buried in.