Rethinking Archaic Sculpture – Program and Abstracts

Christian Kunze (University of Regensburg)

The Early Phases of Greek Marble Sculpture. Questions and Remarks

The paper deals with the earliest phases, the formative period of Greek monumental sculpture in marble, from Nikandre in Delos to the Isches kouros in Samos. Due to the fragmentary nature of the surviving evidence, much remains uncertain and unclear in this field. Above all, the dating of this development and the associated monuments remains doubtful, with only the provisional end point – the kouros of Isches – being reasonably reliable (before 575 BC). The beginning of the phenomenon and other important questions remain largely unclear chronologically, such as the temporal relationship between the earliest marble sculptures in the Cyclades and the ‘Daedalic’ limestone sculptures in Crete, or the evolution of important technical developments such as the invention of the lead-cast plinth as the preferred form of installation. Equally doubtful and insufficiently researched is the question of whether the introduction of large-scale human figures as (predominantly Egyptian-inspired) votive type, which gradually replaced the older leading votive genres, namely bronze vessels (tripods and griffin cauldrons), was linked to content-related interests that may have been observable even before the emergence of large-scale sculpture. Here, I would like to argue that content-related interests initially played a minor role in the introduction of large-scale human figures, but that it was primarily the artifact character of these sculptures (as spectacular products of craftsmanship) that stood in the foreground, and that they have been only secondarily and tentatively linked to Greek representational interests.

Milette Gaifman (Yale University)

The Category of the Kouros and the Conception of "Archaic Sculpture"

The paper examines the history of the modern category of the kouros and its consequences in the study of Greek sculpture. In the early twentieth century, the Greek word "kouros" (youth) came to designate a statue type of a nude beardless male, typically in a standing pose with the left foot forward and arms close to the body, by the sides. Previously, this statue type, which emerged in the seventh century BCE and dominated Greek sculpture in the sixth century BCE, was titled "Apollo", yet with the realization that the sculpted males cannot be assumed to be representations of the deity the term "kouros" was adopted. The paper explores the ramifications of the creation of the category, particularly for the analysis and interpretation of statues that are classified as "kouroi". While proving to be productive in highlighting formal commonalities between a wide array of statues from various corners of the Hellenic world, the category of the kouros also facilitates the understanding of the essence of sculpture of the period, as a forerunner for the great artistic achievements of the following era. The great host of statues of varied scales and materials, from differing sites and contexts that are clustered together under the same heading emerge as the paradigmatic forms of "archaic sculpture", namely as the antecedents of naturalism in art.

Gianfranco Adornato (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa)

Ex Uno Lapide: Rethinking Monumentality in Archaic Sculpture

This paper explores monolithism and monumentality as both technical practice and ideological statement in Archaic sculpture and architecture. Focusing on the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, it examines the emergence of monolithic forms as a decisive shift from small-scale modular production and the widespread use of terracotta toward large-scale works in marble.

Through selected examples of colossal sculpture and monolithic architectural elements in the Archaic Mediterranean, the study considers how the move to marble and increasing scale transformed both aesthetic language and construction practices. Monolithism is interpreted not simply as a structural solution, but as a deliberate expression of monumentality grounded in material unity, permanence, and visual cohesion. The paper argues that carving and building ex uno lapide articulated new forms of sacred and civic presence, reflecting broader cultural ambitions tied to durability, authority, and collective identity in the Archaic Greek world.

Rebecca Levitan (King's College London)

Archaic Naxian Monuments: Extraction and Affordances

This paper considers the ways that Naxian marble – both its advantageous properties and its inherent limitations – shaped the development of Greek monumental sculpture. Using three colossal unfinished abandoned sculptures that remain in Archaic marble quarries of Naxos as case studies, it surveys how quarry workers and artists exploited the affordances of a natural material, a process only made possible through dangerous and expensive trial and error. This paper argues that the material properties of Naxian marble and its affordances drove particular artistic choices previously attributed to regional style or increasing interest in naturalism. Such ideas have inadvertently positioned Archaic Naxos and its sculpture as a stepping stone towards the Greek mainland, reinforcing established chronologies and progressivist narratives. Social and historical factors are instead considered in asking what Naxian cultural affordances allowed for artistic experimentation on this new colossal scale. A close examination of the unfinished examples of abandoned projects in Naxos' Archaic quarries highlights a seeming discrepancy between the pragmatic aspects of the marble extraction process and the highly ambitious and often unfinished nature of major marble monuments of the Archaic period.

Zozi Papadopoulou (Ephorate of Antiquities of Cyclades, Greek Ministry of Culture)

An Inscribed Fragment of a Severe-Style Relief from Paros

The lower part of a grave stele dating to the Severe Style period, carved from Parian marble, was handed over to the Archaeological Museum of Paros some years ago. It depicts the right leg and part of the left leg of a male figure facing to the right. On the left side of the shaft, as viewed by the observer, part of an inscription in the archaic Parian alphabet is preserved: ]ελφεωι. This paper will examine the monument within the broader context of Cycladic relief sculpture of the Severe Style, focusing on both its typological and epigraphic characteristics.

The stele belongs to the well-known type of tall, single-figure funerary monuments in the Severe Style, attested in the Cyclades by examples from Ios, Tinos, and other locations, and showing clear influence from Attic sculpture. Due to its fragmentary condition, any reconstruction of the stele’s upper section remains hypothetical. Nevertheless, the quality of the carving clearly indicates that it is the product of a skilled Parian workshop. Particularly noteworthy is the presence of the inscription on the shaft. Although only partially preserved, the text likely belongs to a type of epitaphs in which the name of the person responsible for the burial appears in the nominative, while the name of the deceased is given in the dative—a formula common in metrical inscriptions of the period.

In Paros, as in other parts of the Cyclades and mainland Greece, several funerary monuments bearing dedicatory inscriptions referring to the deceased have been discovered. However, this is the first known Cycladic example from the Severe Style period that combines figural decoration with an inscription executed in the local alphabet.

Eleni Kalavria (Ephorate of Antiquities of Cyclades, Greek Ministry of Culture)

A New Kouros Head from Naxos

In 2022 a head of a kouros came to light in Naxos. The conditions of its discovery, during works carried out on a building within the medieval castle of Chora, Naxos, deprive the find of its archaeological context. The building where the kouros head was found, with medieval foundations and many later extensions and alterations, was the historic residence of the Latin bishop and is connected to the adjacent Catholic cathedral. The piece of sculpture is damaged, but its condition of preservation allows us to propose a dating and examine its relation to the Naxian production of archaic sculpture, on the basis of stylistic analysis.

Elena Walter-Karydi (University of Saarland)

The Kouroi from Klenia and the Archaic Corinthian Grave Sculpture

The two marble kouroi from Klenia were stolen and then rescued on the 18th May 2010. Their graves were found by the village Klenia, near Corinth. The kouroi represent the persons buried there, as portraits in the archaic sense of the word: identified only through their name on the base – now lost. They are from Parian marble – as there is no marble in the Peloponnese – but their style is purely Corinthian, like that of the famous kouros in Munich, found in the village of Athikia, near Corinth, likewise a portrait of the dead, his name written on the lost base. Characteristic for all three Corinthian kouroi are the slim forms and the precise modelling. Not limited to a single archaic school of sculpture is the so-called archaic smile that appears in the high and late archaic figures, being hardly an expression of a joyful temper but rather of the vitality of these figures. – A kouros can represent a god, a hero or a deceased young man. It is striking that by far the greatest number of grave kouroi have been found in Attica; the presence of three such statues in Corinth is unique; there are no other grave kouroi in the Peloponnese.

Margherita Bonanno (Tor Vergata University of Rome)

Archaic Sculpture in Thebes: Status Quaestionis, New Findings and Future Directions

Archaeological investigations carried out in Thebes between the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have significantly altered our understanding of the Archaic sculpture uncovered so far in this city. Until then, only a very limited number of sculptures were known from this place. The north-eastern necropolis (OSE), the sanctuary of Herakles located just outside the Electrai Gates, and a cist discovered in the Madhis property in the suburb of Pyri have yielded important sculptural fragments in poros and marble, datable to the course of the sixth century BC. The study of these materials—some of which were reused—makes a substantial contribution to reconstructing the history of Thebes, which during the sixth century BC was emerging as the dominant city of Boeotia.

Raphaël Jacob (Acropolis Museum)

A New Archaic Pediment from the Acropolis?

During the examination of marble sculpture fragments, my attention was drawn to four pieces (two in the storerooms of the "new" Acropolis Museum in 2012 and two in the old Acropolis Museum on the Rock in 2023). They appeared to belong to the same sculpture, depicting two lions attacking their prey. In 2026, when the four fragments were physically brought together in the "new" Acropolis Museum, I was able to confirm that they are joining and form a small-scale group, made of Parian marble, representing two lions attacking an animal—more likely a deer than a bull.

The lion-attack motif is well attested in archaic architectural sculpture. On the Athenian Acropolis, it is known from three large pediments, while parallels are documented in the Athenian Agora and at Delphi. The lion-attack motif also appears on reliefs decorating the Temple of Athena at Assos (Turkey): a relief from the architrave of this temple presents a composition comparable to that of the newly reconstructed group. A close parallel to the newly identified group is the pediment (end of the 6th BC) found near the Olympieion in Athens (partly preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and in the National Museum) as well as a pediment from Karystos (Euboea).

It is therefore plausible to associate the newly identified group with architectural sculpture. Hypothetically, it may once have adorned the pediment of a small archaic building that once stood on the Acropolis. If the attribution of this group to a pediment is confirmed, it would illustrate, along with the marble pediments of the Old Temple, the transition from limestone to marble in archaic pedimental sculpture on the Athenian Acropolis and also the permanence of the lion-attack motif during the 6th century BC.

Elisavet Sioumpara (Acropolis Restoration Service, Greek Ministry of Culture)

Old Reliefs, New Meanings. Reconsidering the Marble Sculpted Metopes from the Archaic Parthenon

The lecture re-examines various archaic sculptures from the Acropolis, which have been attributed, mainly but not always, to the architectural decoration of the first monumental Doric Peripteral temple on the Acropolis, the so-called Hekatompedon or archaic Parthenon. The new study and detailed drawings of all the architectural material, as well as the new documentation of all the sculptures attributed to the temple, proves that most of the sculptures that have been associated with relief metopes from the building's Peristalsis or Prostasis should be disconnected from them, with only one exception. This new interpretation allows us to search for and identify new monuments from which they originate and how they contribute to a deeper understanding of the first monumentalization of the sanctuary of Athena at the beginning of the 6th c. BC.

Vasiliki Barlou-Jäggi (Antikenmuseum Basel) and Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier (Emeritus Director, DAI Excavations Kerameikos) (Acropolis Restoration Service, Ministry of Culture)

The Kouros and the Sphinx from the Sacred Gate in the Kerameikos of Athens

In spring of 2002 a cache of four Archaic marble sculptures was found during excavations of the German Archaeological Institute at Athens under the direction of W.-D. Niemeier in the Sacred Gate in the Kerameikos of Athens: a kouros, a sphinx and two lions. In this paper the Kouros and the Sphinx are discussed. The kouros provides a crucial link within the much discussed group of the earliest kouroi found in Attica. He is a brother of the Dipylon head,created by the same sculptor, and gives an impression of what the latter’s body looked like. Related are the Agora kouros and the New York kouros. According to Gisela Richter these early kouroi demonstrate that Athens was "leading in the arts, erecting splendid funerary memorials and colossal dedications." But are they really made by Attic sculptors? They suddenly appear at the turn of the 7th to 6th century BC like a thunderclap without any precursers and are made of marble from Naxos, the island where the monumental kouros type has a tradition going back to the middle of the 7th century BC.The unfinished kouroi found in the Naxos quarries demonstrate that the sculptures were worked there to an advanced stage. This indicates that the sculptors themselves must have worked in the quarries. The Dipylon head, the New York kouros and now the kouros from the Sacred Gate show close stylistic similarities to works that are definitely Naxian. They therefore are to be identified as works by Naxian sculptors. The Kouros from the Sacred Gate also provides new evidence for the controversial question of Egyptian influence on the early kouroi. He is proportioned according to the 2nd Egyptian canon, like the New York kouros, which is therefore not the isolated example it was previously thought to be. The body shapes and a number of anatomical conventions of these earliest kouroi in Attika have their models in Egyptian large-scale sculpture, which means that they must have been based on a direct observation of original Egyptian works. The Sphinx is part of a double column monument that had not previously been attested in the Athenian Kerameikos. In the presentation, the reconstruction of the monument will be reviewed. Then the sparse remaining evidence regarding the topography of the archaic necropolis and the question where this monument might have been erected. will be considered.

Caspar Meyer (Bard Graduate Center)

Sphyrelata as Works of Technical Ingenuity: Toward an Ecology of Materials in Archaic Sculpture

This talk reframes the hammered, riveted sheet-bronze figures known as sphyrelata as a distinct technological pathway within a broader production nexus of people, tools and materials in Archaic Greece. Drawing on practice-based experiments, it compares the operative sequences of cold hammering (raising, annealing, planishing, joining) with those of lost-wax casting to show that choices were governed as much by culture, workshop organization and values as by material efficiency. It asks what 'technical ingenuity' meant in Archaic Greece by contrasting tool-centered descriptions of craft with gesture-centered making, and by reading sphyrelata through the workmanship of risk (managing tear, spring-back, seam integrity and work hardening) versus the mold-bound workmanship of certainty. An ecology-of-materials lens situates these creations within the resource flows of metallurgy—from charcoal and ore to labor—and within the semantic fields of craft and patronage, extending to the meanings of bronze in epic poetry and to memorial landscapes shaped by the Persian Wars and Athenian imperialism. The result is a shift from narratives of ‘failed naturalism’ to viewing sphyrelata as ingenious works wrought by sensuous gestures in responsive metal.

Seth Estrin (Harvard University)

Archaic Greek Sculpture between Armor and Anatomy

This paper reconsiders the representation of the body in Archaic Greek sculpture through the lens of armor. Taking as a point of departure a late Geometric cuirass from Argos, whose abdomen is engraved with lines closely resembling those on the twin kouroi from Delphi, it builds on earlier scholarship that has recognized the role of armorers in the development of Archaic sculpture. While armor has been acknowledged as providing the earliest Archaic sculptors with material and visual models for the body, this paper argues that connections between armor and sculpture were both more purposeful and more long-lasting than previously recognized. Brought into dialogue with Homeric discourses of the armored body, this longer and more interconnected history suggests that armor did not simply shape the appearance or facture of sculpture, but played a fundamental role in how the body itself—the iconographic subject of sculpture—was conceived.

In this light, armor complicates the traditional evolutionary narrative of naturalism, in which Archaic sculpture is said to progress from abstract to increasingly realistic representations of the anatomical body. Within that framework, armor's influence is usually seen as counter to naturalism, and so is admissible only at the earliest, more "schematic" stages. Rather than viewing armor as an abstraction of the body, the paper proposes that it offers privileged access to how the physical body itself was understood. The "naturalism" of Archaic sculpture, on this view, is keyed not only to a transhistorical biological body, but also to an historically situated, armored body. This shift in perspective invites new interpretations of individual sculptures while allowing armor to reframe the broader relationship between living and represented bodies in Archaic Greece.

Nikolaus Dietrich (Heidelberg University)

Retrospective Views of the Archaic: Archaistic Sculpture and Ancient Ideas of Old Age

Among the many retrospective styles in Graeco-Roman sculpture, the archaistic style holds an exceptional place. While later revivals of Classical or Hellenistic style in Roman sculpture arguably do not position these styles as intrinsically 'old', but as 'contemporary', forming part of the wide stylistic tool-box of a fundamentally eclectic art, archaistic stylisation of sculptural forms draws a conspicuous line of demarcation from 'normal' statuary of the (Imperial-Age) present: unlike e.g. an 'Athena Velletri', an archaistic Athena shall produce an anachronistic effect. At the same time, no attempts were made to conceal the fact that archaistic sculpture is not really old. Neither are there Imperial-Age 'forgeries' of archaic statues, nor do we find anything like the practice (largely attested for Classical and Hellenistic sculpture) of precise copying of individual archaic statues. In my paper, I would like to discuss the peculiar phenomenology of archaistic style in view of the ideas of old age and the past underlying this important strand of Graeco-Roman sculpture/visual culture.