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THE
PALAIKASTRO KOUROS
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| Discovery
The Palaikastro Kouros is a youthful male figure (fig. 1), carved in ivory and clad in gold by a sculptor with an extraordinary talent for naturalistic detail. Its broken and burnt fragments (fig. 4 a) lay scattered in Building 5, interpreted as a town sanctuary, and in the street outside (figs. 6a, c), just as they had fallen during the great fire destruction of the early 15th century B.C. |
 Fig. 6a The LM IB destruction in the street outside Building 5 |
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 Fig. 4a Torso as found |
 Fig. 1 The Kouros statuette |
A
Masterpiece of Minoan Art
The figure was composed of serpentine (hair), rock crystal (eyes), wood and Egyptian blue (base), as well as gold (sandals, loincloth) and dowelled pieces of ivory (body) ). It is called the 'Kouros' because we believe it is linked to the Kouros of the later 'Hymn to Zeus' , and like Greek Archaic statues, it drew on a millennia-long sequence of Egyptian figures, who stand stiffly with left foot forward. |
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| C Permission Granted by directors: Mr H.Sackett, Professor A.MacGillivray, Professor J. Driessen and the British School At Athens Archivist. |