Colossal Kore statue from Thera

The colossal marble Kore from the cemetery of the ancient city of Thera is one of the few sculptural works of the Archaic period, in the characteristic type of Kore, preserved complete.

The slender female figure dressed in the full-length garment, under which the feet are barely visible. Her left arm is lowered in contact with the body, while the right arm, that is bent at the elbow, touches the chest, which is only just indicated.

The Kore, made of Naxian marble, was found in a supine position, in an area of archaic burials of the 7th and the 6th centuries BC and, according to the excavator Charalambos Sigalas, it was intended to function as a sema, namely a marker over the grave of an eminent Theran woman. However, as the processing of the sculpture was not completed, possibly due to an accident at the final carving stage, the statue was buried in a supine position at the site where it would have been erected.

Commissioned by a Theran nobleman, the colossal Kore reflects the island’s society in the Archaic period, where similar statues embodied the ideal and were transformed into monuments to perfectly mark the tombs of descendants of Thera’s aristocratic families.