| A few miles from the resorts of Mykonos and Santorini, Keros is a repository of art from the seafaring culture whose flat-faced marble statues inspired the work of 20th century masters Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore.
A few miles from the resorts of Mykonos and Santorini, Keros is a repository of art from the seafaring culture whose flat-faced marble statues inspired the work of 20th century masters Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore.
Indeed, more than half of all documented Cycladic figurines in museums and collections worldwide were found on Keros. Now, excavations by a Greek-British archaeology team have unearthed a cache of ancient statues — all deliberately broken — that they hope will help solve the Keros riddle.
When they were unearthed, the white marble shards were jumbled close together like a pile of bleached bones, an elbow here, a leg there, occasionally a head.
During excavations in the spring and early summer, archaeological team found an undisturbed trove of figurines missed by looters who ransacked the islet in the 1950s and 1960s. They all had been deliberately smashed around 2500 B.C.
The Cycladic culture — a network of small, sometimes fortified farming and fishing settlements that traded with mainland Greece, Crete and Asia Minor — is best known for the elegant figurines: mostly naked, elongated figures with arms folded under their chests. It flourished in 3200-2000 B.C., then was eclipsed by Crete and Mycenaean Greece.
A group of broken figurines like that found this year is known from private collections formed after the looting. But for the first time, experts can now try to piece a story together from the subtle clues that treasure hunters destroy.
Experts agree the figurines, which initially had details painted in bright colors, were highly prized in the early bronze age Cyclades, but still don't understand what they were made for. Some 1,400 have survived, although only 40 percent are of known origin, since looters destroyed evidence on the rest. |
[ Ancient Greek Cycladic statues and figurines known for their smooth flat-faced style, look strikingly modern and inspired the works of 20th century masters like Pablo Picasso. ]
