After the elaborately carved korai of around 500 BCE, this figure shows a return to plainer styles. The inscription on the base tells us that it was dedicated by someone called Euthidikos, and it is one of the many Archaic sculptures found on the Acropolis, buried after the Persian destruction of 479 BCE.
Her hair, without a stephane (tiara), harks back to earlier styles, and the drapery is rather flat. But what makes this sculpture significant is the way the whole figure is meant to be seen in the round. The body is much deeper front to back than ever before, and the modelling of her neck is not as frontal as hitherto
Athens Acropolis Museum 686
Purchased 1927
Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 78 (n.13), pl. 24.3
Schrader: Archaischen Marmorbildwerke des Akropolis (1939), 77-
Payne & Young: Archaic Marble Sculpture from the Acropolis, 40-
Dickins: Catalogue of the Acropolis Museum I, 241-
Inscription: IG I(3) 758; DAA 56
Karakasi: Archaic Korai (2003), 119
Euthydikos, son of Thaliarchos, dedicated (me)
Found on the Acropolis, Athens
