GREEK ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY B.C.:
JUDY AND MICHAEL H. STEINHARDT GALLERY
 The three galleries on the east side of the Mary and Michael Jaharis Gallery are devoted primarily to original marble sculpture of the archaic and classical periods. The Gallery for Greek Art of the Sixth Century B.C. opens this sequence with the Museum’s outstanding collection of Athenian funerary monuments of the sixth century B.C. During this period Attica, and its principal city, Athens, became one of the wealthiest city-states of mainland Greece and a leader in artistic achievement. Early in the century, the lawgiver Solon laid the foundation for this development with reforms that stimulated the economy and based political participation on property rather than birth.
The marble statue of a nude youth (kouros) that stands in the center of the room is one of the earliest monumental kouroi to have survived complete. The New York Kouros, as it is known, once marked the grave of a young member of a wealthy landowning family. Other grave markers displayed nearby consist of rectangular shafts decorated with finely carved and painted reliefs of the deceased, including one of the best preserved archaic Attic Greek stelai in existence, which stands over 13 feet high and bears traces of most of its original painted decoration. Free-standing and relief sculptures demonstrate the rapid development in naturalistic representation that took place during the sixth century B.C. One of these monuments stands out for its particularly good state of preservation, complete with the crowning member in the form of a sphinx. The vases, small bronzes, and other objects of this period displayed throughout the room are grouped in a way that elucidates important customs and beliefs concerning death, warfare, and the drinking parties known as symposia, which were current in Athens throughout the Archaic period.
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