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Ancient Mediterranean + Europe
Course: Ancient Mediterranean + Europe > Unit 6
Lesson 3: Daedalic and Archaic- Tiny Timelines: Archaic Greece in a global context
- Kouroi and Korai, an introduction
- Lady of Auxerre
- Bronze helmet donated by Olympic gold medalist Son Gijeong
- New York Kouros
- New York Kouros
- Marble Statue of a kouros
- Anavysos Kouros
- Anavysos Kouros
- The Kouroi of Kleobis and Biton
- Peplos Kore from the Acropolis
- Peplos Kore
- Ancient Greek temples at Paestum, Italy
- Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi
- Siphnian Treasury, Delphi
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Peplos Kore from the Acropolis
The Peplos Kore, an ancient Greek sculpture, was initially thought to represent a young woman wearing a peplos. However, recent research suggests it might depict a goddess like Artemis or Athena. The figure's unique clothing and possible accessories, such as a bow and arrow, contribute to this debate. The sculpture showcases the archaic smile, symbolizing well-being and transcending worldly emotions. Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker & Dr. Beth Harris. Created by Steven Zucker and Beth Harris.
Want to join the conversation?
- Does anyone know why the kouroi are nude, but the korai are not? Were the Greeks not interested in creating an ideal female figure?(8 votes)
- The ancients Greeks would practice sports in the nude, and they were obsessed with an ideal, athletic physique of the male body. This ideal body form is what they were purportedly trying to capture in their nude male sculptures.(2 votes)
- why didn't they explain why it could have been athena(4 votes)
- Because it resembles more with Artemis than Athena(6 votes)
- At, why does she have a weird nose? 0:25(1 vote)
- The nose is not "weird", simply damaged. When statues fall, extremities like noses are easily damaged. You can see an idea of what the People Kore might have looked like originally -- http://museum.classics.cam.ac.uk/collections/casts/peplos-kore-restored.(10 votes)
- If female korai statues were also common in the archaic period, why do we mainly hear about the male kouroi? Are the kourai more common or more frequent, or is it just a leftover bias to look at the evolution of the male figure while ignoring the female?(2 votes)
- The number of preserved kouroi (almost all of them fragmentary) surpasses the number of korai. The kouroi and korai had different functions in their original contexts. The kouros embodies arete (excellence) and celebrates the vigor and athleticism of the male form. It is not so much an issue of bias as it is a different in functionality / intention.(5 votes)
- So is this figure Archaic or classical? Is the Anavysos Kouros Archaic as well or is it classical? I thought that the Archaic period ended in 500 BCE according to. 0:55it states that the Peplos Kore is the "Most exceptional figure from the Archaic period" 4:47(2 votes)
- From the author:Both are from the Archaic period which lasted until roughly 480 B.C.E.(2 votes)
- Atthe sculpture has a hole in her earlobe, was this hole for an earring or is it a hole that was created because a fragment broke off of the statue? I think it was for an earring because the hole is an almost perfect circle. 3:04(2 votes)
- Does anyone know why female figures were always clothed until much later? Why did this shift happen?(2 votes)
- Why were her eyes painted red?(2 votes)
- Why was the kore clothed but the kouros naked?(1 vote)
- It was not common until modern times to show females naked. In the 15-16th century, cultural standards changed and it became a very popular theme, while male nudity got covered. Greeks considered the male body as an ideal, so loved to present it naked (which was imitated by the Renaissance sculptors like Michelangelo)(2 votes)
- When I learned art history in the 1970s, the pronunciation of "kore" was "ko-ray."(1 vote)
Video transcript
Voiceover: We're looking at a figure known as the Peplos Kore in the
Acropolis Museum in Athens. Now this is one of the funny things that happens in art history. Things get named based on
original thoughts about something. But then when later research is done that name doesn't really work anymore. Voiceover: But we keep the name because everybody knows it by that name. Voiceover: Exactly Voiceover: So this is
know as the Peplos Kore because we originally thought
she was simply wearing a peplos which is an
ancient Greek costume, a rectangle of cloth often linen that is pinned at the
shoulders and then falls down. Voiceover: A kore is a type of figure that was found throughout ancient Greece. It's a female figure that's clothed and the counterpart to the
male kouros who was nude. Voiceover: Kore simply
means young woman in Greek. Voiceover: Both korai and kouroi were found in great numbers
during the archaic period which is the period just
before the classical. Voiceover: It's a small sculpture and it was found on the Acropolis. Voiceover: Korai figures
were generally offerings to the goddess Athena
brought interestingly in many cases by men. Voiceover: But recent
research suggests that this may not be a representation
of a young woman at all. This might be a goddess. Voiceover: This figure is
clothed in a very unusual way. Voiceover: Among all of the
sculptures of young women that were found on the Acropolis, this is the only one dressed in this way. Now art historians are actively arguing about what it is that she's wearing. Some still hold to the idea of the peplos. Some suggest that it is a
ketan underneath the peplos. Some say that there's a cape above. So there's any number of possibilities. It has also been researched
into the original coloration of the figure which helps
us understand her costume. Voiceover: Because what she
is wearing is so unusual and is similar to sculptures of goddesses, there is some conjecture recently, very carefully researched conjecture that this may in fact not be an offering which is what's true of
most korai on the Acropolis. But that this is a goddess herself, perhaps Artemis or Athena. Voiceover: Well Artemis
is really important. She was the goddess of the hunt. Voiceover: And she often
carried a bow and arrow. And what's so frustrating
about this sculpture is that we don't have
what she was carrying which would settle once and for all a lot of questions about who she was. Voiceover: Well clearly
she had her left arm straight out, bent at the elbow. Voiceover: Which was
characteristic of most of the representations
of these young women. Voiceover: But in this
case we think she might have been holding a bow with her left hand and we can see in her right hand a fist which is drilled in such a way that it could easily have held an arrow and so she may well be Artemis, the goddess the Romans
would later call Diana. Let's take a close look at the figure. We can see that there are a
lot of holes crowning her head. She probably wore a metal
diadem, a kind of metal crown with rays that would have come up which certainly suggests her divinity. Voiceover: And it wasn't
unusual for these female figures to wear crowns or to wear
other kinds of jewelry that were represented either in paint or as metal that was
applied to the sculpture. Voice over: We can also
see that there's a rod that rises right out of top of her head and some art historians have suggested that there might have been
a crescent above the diadem. And as you said, we can see
holes for bronze earrings which would have been there originally. Her face would have been
more complexly painted. Only the red really survives but we think that there was likely
some black around the eyes and around the eyebrows as well as red and perhaps some more
subtle colors as well. Voiceover: The sculpture has
indicated not only her breasts and her waist but also a subtle sense of her legs underneath
that very heavy drapery. There's a little bit of a sense
of movement in the figure. Voiceover: This is very
much an archaic figure. Voiceover: She does
wear that archaic smile. Voiceover: But we have to remember that that smile was not meant
to be an expression of emotion of happiness but
rather a symbol of well being. Voiceover: And that
smile gives us the figure a sense of being transcendent,
a sense of being ideal, of not engaging in the world
of emotion and difficulty but somehow rising above all
that and so that makes sense for a figure that was a goddess or a figure that represented
ideal femininity. Voiceover: And I think that was probably really beautifully expressed
when this sculpture was new and still brightly painted. We found traces of paint
in the band at the bottom of the cloth that hangs
down over her abdomen. And then in the front of her garment it seems to part just in
the middle of her torso. Voiceover: We see
representation of embroidery of decorative patterns and of animals. Voiceover: Right, we see sphinx. We see horses. There are representations
of perhaps goats. All of which is visible
only under special lighting and is no longer visible to the eye. Voiceover: And perhaps suggests
fecundity or fertility. It's very difficult to know. Voiceover: What we do
know is that she is one of the most exceptional figures
from the archaic period. We're lucky she survived
for all of these years.