Athens Panel Agrees: Getty’s Kouros Is a Statue

The only consensus that emerged from a colloquium staged this week in Athens to consider the authenticity of the J. Paul Getty’s controversial archaic Greek statue of a nude male, or kouros, was a call for improved methods of study.

Ancient quarries should be protected from harmful excavation, data bases on ancient stone sculpture should be created and archeologically rich countries should make themselves available for collaboration, according to an official statement released after the conference.

“I believe the colloquium has been extremely fruitful. Although there was no consensus about the authenticity of the Getty kouros, as many of us here in Greece expected, we have all enriched substantially our knowledge of the subject of archaic kouroi,” said Vassilis Lambrinoudakis, professor of classical archeology at the University of Athens and chair of the scholarly meeting.

Lambrinoudakis said the colloquium strengthened doubts about the figure’s authenticity, but much scientific evidence disputes this view. “Research that has been done on the surface of the statue has shown that it couldn’t have been made with modern technical means, but more research still lies ahead,” he said.