The stone sculptures of young Greek men known as kouroi reflect the evolving desires, beliefs, and identities of the elite individuals who commissioned them and whose privileged lives were threatened by the changing social and political landscape of the Archaic Period (c. 700-479 BCE). Uncoincidentally, the Greeks were also trading with and settling alongside the Egyptians, whose kings observed a millennia-long tradition of imbuing their own identity, power, and virtue into their figural sculpture. Scholarship typically treats these two contextual elements of kouroi in two completely separate areas of discourse: a debate on the correct interpretation of the symbols, purposes, and identities of kouroi, and a debate on whether the Greeks were inspired by Egyptian figural sculpture. Neither of these discourses considers how an Egyptian influence on the kouros affects not only its design but also its expression of elite identity. This thesis aims to bridge this gap in scholarship to improve our understanding of kouroi as a product of both the Greek and Egyptian worlds. It finds that the sculpture that was commissioned by the Greek elite was influenced by the aesthetic and technical features of royal Egyptian sculpture. By constructing funerary kouroi that memorialised their deceased youths, the elite reinforced the power, memory, and identity that they struggled to maintain, but that was achieved by the Egyptian kings. As the Archaic Period progressed and the unified Greek identity burgeoned, the Egyptian aspects of kouroi diminished in favour of a uniquely Greek display of agency and individuality that reflected the new world of this elite class.