The Kore of SamosThe Kore of Samos
An offering to the goddess Hera
The Kore of Samos is a statue of a draped young girl. It was made as an offering to Hera, goddess of marriage and family as well as wife and sister of Zeus, in her temple on the island of Samos, her birthplace according to Greek mythology. The statue, which was at one time painted in vibrant colours, is made from local Samian marble. The offering was dedicated by Cheramyes around 570 BC, as indicated by the inscription that runs vertically along the left leg. This colossal statue, which stood at the northern entrance to the temple, enabled the father – or husband – of the young girl depicted to proclaim his aristocratic status.
The temple priestess
The statue is garbed in three garments: a delicately pleated linen tunic, a thicker woollen cloak draped across the right shoulder and torso, and a smooth veil flowing over the back and left leg. This veil would have also covered the head, which is missing from the statue. Teams from Snapchat and the Louvre were able to reconstruct the missing head using heads from other, more complete Samian korai. The young girl grasps her veil in her right hand, which is at her side along her thigh. In her left hand, clutched in a fist against her chest, she once held an object that has since been lost: perhaps an offering (like a piece of fruit or a bird), or rather, a bronze key to the temple. A temple key is presented here through an augmented reality experience. Such a key would have symbolised that the girl was a priestess, probably devoted to the worship of Hera, goddess to whom the statue was dedicated.
Samian style
The simplicity of the folds in the young girl’s tunic and cloak, the cylindrical volume in the rendering of the legs, and the uniform pleats in the garment draped across the feet are all characteristic of the Samian style. The workshops on the island of Samos, in eastern Greece, were among the most inventive of the Archaic period. In the 6th century BC, these Samian workshops stood out from those of Paros or Naxos, which favoured flatter surfaces. Display case 52 holds a very small marble head from a statuette also made in the Samian style. While the head of the Kore of Samos was broken sometime in late antiquity, this statuette head offers a glimpse of what that of the larger statue would have looked like.