Feet from the statue of a kouros

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Ancient Greek sculptors first created the modern term kouros to describe free-standing sculptures depicting nude male youths who emerged during Greece's Archaic period. The term kouros itself translates to "youth," "boy," or especially "young noble" in Ancient Greek, reflecting their depiction of these figures. In 1895, V. I. Leonardos initially applied the term kouros to what were once thought to be Apollo depictions based on a youth from Keratea; Henri Lechat later adopted it as a general term for standing male figures in 1904. Kouros statues are discovered across the Greek-speaking world, with most found in sanctuaries dedicated to Apollo, including over one hundred at the sanctuary of Apollo Ptoios alone in Boeotia. Typically crafted from marble, these sculptures can also be rendered in limestone, wood, bronze, ivory, or terracotta; they usually stand life-sized, although early colossal examples reach up to 3 meters tall.