The Kroisos Kouros (Ancient Greek: κοῦρος) is a marble kouros from Anavyssos in Attica which functioned as a grave marker for a fallen young warrior named Kroísos. The free-standing sculpture strides forward with the "archaic smile" playing slightly on his face. The sculpture is dated to c. 540-515 BC and stands 1.95 meters high. It is now situated in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens (inv. no. 3851).
The inscription on the base of the statue reads: "Stop and show pity beside the marker of Kroisos, dead, whom once in battle's front rank raging Ares destroyed".
The Kroisos Kouros is central to two ongoing archeological debates: first, whether kouroi represented specific young men or were generic representations of idealized archetypes which might not actually resemble a specific person commemorated, and thus are symbolic representations embodying the ideal of the male warrior en promáchois (ἐν προμάχοις), "in the front line" of battle, not naturalistic ones; and second the authenticity of the Getty kouros, which bears a falsified provenance and displays a suspicious similarity to the Kroisos kouros.[1]