The Archaic statues of Kleobis and Biton were created by which sculptor?

The Archaic statues of Kleobis and Biton were created by Polymedes of Argos. The sculptor’s name survives unusually clearly in an inscription divided across the statues’ bases, making this attribution one of the rare securely named examples from early Greek sculpture.

The paired marble kouroi date to about 580 BCE and were made in Argos, although they were discovered at Delphi. They represent the legendary brothers celebrated by Herodotus: according to the story, they pulled their mother’s cart to a festival of Hera when the family oxen could not be found. Their mother prayed for the greatest blessing, and the brothers died peacefully in their sleep after the festival.

Their rigid frontal stance, one advanced foot, muscular bodies, large almond-shaped eyes, and archaic smiles are characteristic of the period. They are conventionally identified as Kleobis and Biton, though some scholars have proposed that the statues represent the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux. That interpretive debate does not alter the inscription naming Polymedes.