A view of the back side of Statue "A." He stands in a contrapposto pose.
It seems that the statues were cast in the middle of the fifth century B.C. It is not certain who the sculptor(s) was/were. It seems that the bronze material is from Agros or Attica in Greece. Possibly they were on a ship that foundered off the coast of Riace that was carrying these statues to Rome (as plunder?)—but no shipwreck has been found in the vicinity.
They are now displayed in a climate-controlled room of the Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia in Reggio di Calabria.