The Getty Museum paid roughly $10 million for a towering marble statue of an archaic Greek youth and eventually had to admit it could not say whether it was ancient or modern. This episode unravels the forensic mystery of the Getty Kouros, which arrived in seven pieces in 1983 from Basel dealer Gianfranco Becchina with a provenance file that fell apart almost immediately, including a 1952 letter bearing a postal code that did not exist until 1972 and a 1955 letter citing a bank account opened in 1963.

We explain why forged paperwork does not automatically mean a forged statue, then walk through the stylistic evidence that spans nearly a century from the hair to the feet, the anatomical quirks that argue for authenticity, the fine point tool marks that argue against it, and the geochemistry. Norman Herz traced the marble to Thasos, Stanley M ...