The Antikythera Youth: saved for posterity by a shipwreck

In this video, art historians Dr. Kristen Loring Brennan and Dr. Steven Zucker introduce us to a statue from ancient Greece, rescued from a shipwreck, known as The Antikythera Youth, (340-330 B.C.E., bronze, 1.96m).

According to the two academics, part of the striking statue’s significance lies in its rarity – at the time of its making, bronze was a material that could easily be melted and used for other items, so few such bronzes survive.

The Antikythera Youth also elegantly displays the elongated musculature, bone structure and glass, inset eyes, standing contrapposto, which are hallmarks of statues from the late classical period.

The figure is thought to be either the mythical Greek hero Perseus, originally holding the head of the slain gorgon Medusa in his right hand, or, perhaps, Homer’s doomed Trojan hero Paris, offering the famous apple of discord to the most beautiful of the Greek goddesses, Aphrodite, in return for Helen.

The statue itself can be found at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

View the original video here.

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