Featured: Friendly specialist tours to ancient, mystical and historical sites in the UK and beyond

Friendly specialist tours to ancient, mystical and historical sites in the UK and beyond

Random Image


Griffin's Hole

Stone Circles, A Modern Builder's Guide

Stone Circles, A Modern Builder's Guide

Who's Online

There are currently, 388 guests and 6 members online.

You are a guest. To join in, please register for free by clicking here

Sponsors

<< Our Photo Pages >> Keros - Sculptured Stone in Greece in Greek Islands

Submitted by davidmorgan on Saturday, 11 September 2021  Page Views: 11004

Neolithic and Bronze AgeSite Name: Keros
Country: Greece
NOTE: This site is 6.354 km away from the location you searched for.

Region: Greek Islands Type: Sculptured Stone

Latitude: 36.891000N  Longitude: 25.648000E
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
2 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
5 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
1 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
3

Internal Links:
External Links:

Keros
Keros submitted by Andy B : Fragments of cycladic figurines found on the island of Keros. Image copyright Cambridge-Keros Project (Vote or comment on this photo)
Island of broken figurines. Why were Bronze Age figurines smashed, transported and buried in shallow pits on the Aegean island of Keros? Recent research sheds light on a 4,500-year-old mystery.

On a June morning in 1963 Colin Renfrew stepped from a caïque boat onto the scrub-covered Aegean Island of Keros on the basis of a tip-off. In search of material for his graduate studies, the young Cambridge graduate had been intrigued by rumours of a recent looting of the almost uninhabited island relayed to him by a Greek archaeologist.

Sure enough, evidence of looting abounded. As he reported back to the Greek Archaeological Service, on whose permit he had been surveying the Greek Cycladic islands, smashed marble statues and bowls and broken pottery lay scattered over the hillside.

Despite the destruction, it was clear that the fragments were Early Cycladic, an interesting find in itself. In fact, as he was to discover, he had also stumbled upon the first evidence of an astonishing Bronze Age ritual.

Broken bodies

A year later, the Greek Archaeological Service carried out a major recovery, finding fragments of a type of sculpture found previously mainly in Cycladic Bronze Age graves. The simplicity of these eerily beautiful figurines, with their folded arms, sloping feet and featureless faces, are said to have inspired Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore.

On Keros, however, apart from a single intact figurine, all others were broken. There were ‘body parts’ in their hundreds – an elongated foot, a single breast, a folded arm, a pair of thighs, a face – all jumbled together with broken bowls and pots.

When the ‘Keros Hoard’, a collection widely believed to be part of the looted material, appeared on the antiquities market in the 1970s and all the fragments were also broken, the mystery deepened. Was the site on Keros an ancient burial ground that, perhaps in haste, had been destroyed by looters, or was the site something else entirely?

A special deposit

A new opportunity to investigate came in 1987, when Renfrew, by then a Professor in the Department of Archaeology, and two Greek archaeologists were permitted to excavate and survey the looted area, which they called Special Deposit North. “We recovered great quantities of broken material and yet as we excavated more we found no indications of tombs,” said Professor Renfrew.

Not only were the fragments not grave goods but the first of several astonishing features came to light, as Professor Renfrew explained: “As I studied the marble materials for publication, I realised that nearly all of the breakages seemed to be ancient and not the result of the looting. They had been deliberately broken before burial.”

“Although this excavation didn’t resolve the puzzle it did emphasise how rich the site was and how puzzling.” The archaeologists felt sure that more light would be shed by investigation both of an area a few hundred metres further south that also seemed to be a Special Deposit and of the tiny steep-sided islet of Dhaskalio that lay 80 metres off-shore from Keros.

Return to Keros

It was another two decades before Professor Renfrew was able to return, this time for three seasons of excavation, ending in 2008, and with an international team of almost 30 experts. The post-excavation analyses of the finds are now nearing conclusion.

In the first year, the Cambridge–Keros project team excavated at the southern site and confirmed the presence of another Special Deposit, but this time undisturbed by looters. Many of the materials were bundled together in small pits up to two metres in diameter. The breakages were old and deliberate. Moreover, the absence of marble chips, expected in the case of breakages on the spot, showed the fragments had been broken elsewhere. As later radiocarbon dating confirmed, they had been deposited over a 500-year period from 2800 BC to 2300 BC.

“But the strangest finding of all was that hardly any of the fragments of the 500-odd figurines and 2,500 marble vessels joined together,” said Professor Renfrew. “This was a very interesting discovery. The only conclusion we could come to was that these special materials were broken on other islands and single pieces of each figurine, bowl or pot were brought by generations of Cycladic islanders to Keros.”

Bronze Age guesthouse?

Meanwhile, across the short stretch of water to Dhaskalio, a very different picture was emerging. From the outset, the islet showed evidence of having been a major Bronze Age stronghold with structures built on carefully prepared terraces circling a summit, on which a large hall was erected. The settlement dates from around the time of the Special Deposits, and then continued to operate before being abandoned around 2200 BC.

Examination of its geology showed that the beautifully regular walling of the settlement was imported marble rather than the flaky local limestone found on Keros. Remarkably, in the same era the pyramids were being built and Stonehenge erected, Cycladic islanders were shipping large quantities of building materials, probably by raft, over considerable distances to build Dhaskalio.

Here, too, there were puzzling finds: a stash of about 500 egg-shaped pebbles at the summit and stone discs found everywhere across the settlement. And, although there was evidence that the olive and vine were well-known to the inhabitants of Dhaskalio, the terrain there and on Keros could never have supported the large population the scale of the site implies, suggesting that food also was imported.

One answer is to hypothesise a largely transient population. Several strands make this plausible, as Dr Michael Boyd, who is collating the results of the post-excavation analyses, explained: “Archaeobotanical evidence implies that the site was not intensively occupied year-round, and the imported pottery and materials suggests the possibility of groups coming seasonally from elsewhere.”

“A possible attractor to the site,” he added, “would of course be the Special Deposit on the immediately opposite shore.” In fact, team geologists believe that Dhaskalio and Keros were probably one land mass during the Early Bronze Age and that tectonic movement and rising sea levels created the divide.

Sanctuary

As the team members conclude their analyses of the finds, all indications point towards Keros having been a major ritual centre of the Cycladic civilisation. “We believe that the breaking of the statues and other goods was a ritual and that Keros was chosen as a sanctuary to preserve the effects,” said Professor Renfrew.

He speculates that the objects were used repeatedly in rituals in the home islands, perhaps carried in ritual processions in much the same way that icons are paraded today in Greek villages: “They had a use-life, probably being painted and repainted from year to year. Perhaps the convention was that when a figure had reached the end of its use-life, it could not simply be thrown away or used conventionally, it needed to be desanctified in an elaborate process.”

“Strangely,” he added, “there seems to have been some obligation to bring a piece of the broken figure and deposit it on what must have been the sacred island of Keros, possibly staying a few days on Dhaskalio while the ceremony was completed.” The missing pieces of the statues, bowls and pottery have never been located on other islands and Professor Renfrew wonders if they were thrown into the sea during transit and have long since disintegrated.

This wouldn’t be the first time a sanctuary has been identified in the Greek islands – Delphi, Olympia and Delos for instance – but it would be the earliest by about 2,000 years and certainly the most mysterious.

The Cambridge–Keros project was authorised by the Greek Archaeological Service and supported by the British School at Athens, with funding from the Institute for Aegean Prehistory, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Society of Antiquaries of London, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, British Academy, Leventis Foundation and Leverhulme Trust.

For more information, please visit www.arch.cam.ac.uk/keros

View images of the fragments on Flickr

Source: Cambridge University

Note: The excavations at Dhaskalio, directed by Colin Renfrew and Michael Boyd have completely transformed our understanding of what was previously seen as a Cycladic enigma. Watch The Enigma of Keros TV Documentary, linked from the comments on our page.
You may be viewing yesterday's version of this page. To see the most up to date information please register for a free account.


Do not use the above information on other web sites or publications without permission of the contributor.

Nearby Images from Flickr
Koufonissia, Kros, Antikeri
Boats
Koufonissi_Greece
242
241
240

The above images may not be of the site on this page, but were taken nearby. They are loaded from Flickr so please click on them for image credits.


Click here to see more info for this site

Nearby sites

Click here to view sites on an interactive map of the area

Key: Red: member's photo, Blue: 3rd party photo, Yellow: other image, Green: no photo - please go there and take one, Grey: site destroyed

Download sites to:
KML (Google Earth)
GPX (GPS waypoints)
CSV (Garmin/Navman)
CSV (Excel)

To unlock full downloads you need to sign up as a Contributory Member. Otherwise downloads are limited to 50 sites.


Turn off the page maps and other distractions

Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 18.0km WSW 255° Iracleia Calculation Grid* Carving
 18.0km WSW 255° Irakleia - Cyclades Petroglyph 1* Rock Art
 18.0km WSW 255° Irakleia spiral shaped Petroglyph 4* Rock Art
 18.3km WSW 256° Irakleia Spiral shaped petroglyph 2* Rock Art
 18.7km WSW 251° Irakleia Spiral shaped petroglyphs 3 * Rock Art
 20.7km NW 320° Zeus' Cave* Cave or Rock Shelter
 23.1km NNW 331° Archaeological Museum of Apiranthos* Museum
 24.6km NW 309° Dimitras Temple* Ancient Temple
 25.7km NW 320° Menhir of Naxos* Standing Stone (Menhir)
 27.3km NW 321° Potami Kouros* Carving
 27.6km NW 321° Flerio Kouros* Carving
 31.5km NW 311° Yria Temple* Ancient Temple
 33.2km NNW 345° Apollonas Kouros* Carving
 34.5km NW 315° Portara* Ancient Temple
 53.4km WNW 282° Spileo Stalaktiton* Cave or Rock Shelter
 55.3km WSW 244° Episkopi (Sikinos)* Ancient Temple
 56.1km SSW 200° Museum of Prehistoric Thera* Museum
 59.5km SSW 195° Episkopi Gonia cemetery* Rock Cut Tomb
 59.9km SSW 195° Zoodochos Pigi* Rock Cut Tomb
 60.5km SSW 195° Diapla* Ancient Village or Settlement
 60.5km SSW 195° Archaea Thera* Ancient Village or Settlement
 63.8km SSW 200° Akrotiri* Ancient Village or Settlement
 63.9km SSW 197° Echendra* Rock Cut Tomb
 64.1km SSW 197° Gavrilos* Rock Cut Tomb
 64.1km SSW 197° Thira Temple of Diana* Ancient Temple
View more nearby sites and additional images

<< Oberbipp Dolmen

Watten Standing Stone >>

Please add your thoughts on this site

Inside the Neolithic Mind: Consciousness, Cosmos and the Realm of the Gods

Inside the Neolithic Mind: Consciousness, Cosmos and the Realm of the Gods

Sponsors

Auto-Translation (Google)

Translate from English into:

"Keros" | Login/Create an Account | 11 News and Comments
  
Go back to top of page    Comments are owned by the poster. We aren't responsible for their content.
Re: Keros by Tuatha on Sunday, 12 September 2021
(User Info | Send a Message)
I am reminded of something similar in southern Crete, on the cliff tops between Kali Limenes and Matalla.
In the 60s when I lived there and roamed the region there was one expanse which was coated - carpetted might be a better word - with untold thousands/millions of shards of baked clay.
Being exposed for who knows how long they were worn almost featureless and I was never able to discover more information.
The local shepherds would give that Mediterranean shrug when asked, pou katelivis and I have never found any reference in archeological works, not for want of searching.
The best way to describe the appearance is that a vast wave or tsunami washed over the area millennia ago - bear in mind that this area was the highest point for miles about.
I've often wondered if it could have been a result of the eruption of Thera in 1600BC.
[ Reply to This ]
    Re: Keros by nifitsa on Friday, 17 September 2021
    (User Info | Send a Message)
    I have seen something similar elsewhere in Greece. I wondered whether these were fragments of roof tiles left behind as the roofing of ancient buildings collapsed. I suppose the building stones may have been quarried for use elsewhere. Topos text is a fabulous resource for finding obscure sites. There may be something mentioned for the area you are talking about https://topostext.org/the-places
    [ Reply to This ]

The Enigma of Keros TV Documentary by nifitsa on Tuesday, 01 June 2021
(User Info | Send a Message)
Superb Greek TV documentary about the archaeological investigation of Keros.
With English subtitles.

The excavations at Dhaskalio (directed by Colin Renfrew and Michael Boyd of the McDonald Institute, University of Cambridge) have completely transformed our understanding of what was previously seen as a Cycladic enigma. The today uninhabited island of Keros, in Cyclades, Greece, was the site of the world’s earliest maritime sanctuary in the Early Bronze Age, and a thriving center for metal production, providing much evidence for all crucial developments in architecture.



https://youtu.be/ZdQpvPnnFqo
[ Reply to This ]

Complex engineering and metal-work discovered beneath ancient Greek 'pyramid' by Andy B on Friday, 19 January 2018
(User Info | Send a Message)
Latest find on Cyclades’ Keros includes evidence of metal-working and suggests the beginnings of an urban centre, say archaeologists

Maev Kennedy writes: More than 4,000 years ago builders carved out the entire surface of a naturally pyramid-shaped promontory on the Greek island of Keros. They shaped it into terraces covered with 1,000 tonnes of specially imported gleaming white stone to give it the appearance of a giant stepped pyramid rising from the Aegean: the most imposing manmade structure in all the Cyclades archipelago.

But beneath the surface of the terraces lay undiscovered feats of engineering and craftsmanship to rival the structure’s impressive exterior. Archaeologists from three different countries involved in an ongoing excavation have found evidence of a complex of drainage tunnels – constructed 1,000 years before the famous indoor plumbing of the Minoan palace of Knossos on Crete – and traces of sophisticated metalworking.

More here
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/18/complex-engineering-and-metal-work-discovered-beneath-ancient-greek-pyramid
[ Reply to This ]

Re: Keros by Tuatha on Saturday, 01 June 2013
(User Info | Send a Message)
I would guess that (the vast majority of)the figurines are of the Mother goddesses, broken and buried in some sort of change over to the ascendant war gods.
[ Reply to This ]

Archaeologists Explore Early Bronze Age Settlement on Greek Island of Keros by davidmorgan on Sunday, 19 May 2013
(User Info | Send a Message)
Submitted by coldrum:

Keros Island. It is known for the famous assemblage of fragmentary Cycladic marble figurines popularly known as the "Keros Hoard", a collection of artifacts purportedly found by looters at the site of Kavos on the west coast of this now uninhabited Greek island in the Cyclades, southeast of Naxos in the Mediterranean. Many of the figurines, traded on the antiquities market, ended up in the Erlenmeyer Collection in Basel, Switzerland, with the rest dispersed among various museums and private collections. The figurines were said to have inspired the work of Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore.

Now, archaeologists will be returning to the island to conduct a survey that will, they hope, shed additional light on the settlement and civilization that constituted the famous hoard's context, with an eye toward further targeted excavations.

The ancient people who presumably produced or traded the figurines inhabited a settlement that, based on previous investigations and excavations, flourished during the 3rd millennium B.C. as a part of the Early Bronze Age Cycladic civilization. Excavations carried out under the direction of Professor Colin Renfrew of the University of Cambridge and the British School at Athens (the "Cambridge Keros Project") from 2006 to 2007 at Kavos uncovered more fragmentary Cycladic figurines, vessels and other objects made of marble, suggested by the excavators to have been broken elsewhere but brought to Kavos for deposition. In 2008 they excavated a large area they identified as part of a Cycladic period settlement on the nearby associated islet of Dhaskalio. That excavation revealed a substantial building 16 metres long and 4 metres wide, considered to be the largest from this period in the Cyclades — within which was discovered an assemblage comprising a chisel, an axe-adze and a shaft-hole axe of copper or bronze. In addition to excavation, survey of the islet showed that most of it evidenced Early Bronze Age occupation, making this the largest archaeological site in the Cyclades.

"A pedestrian surface survey of the island of Keros was begun in 2012 in order to place the results of the 2006-2008 excavations in a wider context", reports the Project leadership. "Much of the west of the island was covered in 2012, and so the work this year will concentrate in the east, although some intensive collections will also be scheduled in the west. The aim is to complete the survey in 2013."[1]

For more information about the Keros Island Survey go to http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/keros/ and http://www.archaeological.org/fieldwork/afob/11749.

http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/march-2013/article/archaeologists-explore-early-bronze-age-settlement-on-greek-island-of-keros
[ Reply to This ]

Broken idols of Keros: British archaeologists explain Greek mystery by davidmorgan on Tuesday, 05 July 2011
(User Info | Send a Message)
Some of the thousands of deliberately broken figurines, none of which fit together, which archaeologists believe were part of a mysterious rite which took place about 4,500 years ago on the Aegean island of Keros.

To say it has been an archaeological mystery may be an understatement: why are fragments of beautiful but deliberately smashed bronze age figurines buried in shallow pits on a small, rocky Greek island whose main inhabitants have always been goats?

Today, academics at Cambridge University will release findings that shed light on the 4,500-year-old puzzle of Keros, a tiny Cycladic island in the Aegean.

It appears Keros was the ceremonial destination for a ritual that involved islanders breaking prized possessions and making a pilgrimage with fragments for burial.

"It is rather remarkable," said Professor Colin Renfrew, who led the most recent excavations.

"We believe that the breaking of statues and other goods was a ritual and that Keros was chosen as a sanctuary to preserve the effects."

The Keros story began in 1963 with Renfrew himself. Then a long-haired research student – he is now Lord Renfrew – he stepped off a caïque boat on to the island (human population: two goatherders) after being tipped off about a site of archaeological interest.

"I was amazed to find fragments of marble bowls and marble figurines," said Renfrew. The fragments were of a type of sculpture found across the Cyclades, examples of which can be seen in the British Museum and have inspired artists including Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brancusi and Henry Moore.

The Keros sculptures were almost all broken. Archaeologists found thousands of marble vessel fragments and hundreds of figurine body parts, such as a pair of thighs, a folded arm or an elongated foot.

The matter rested there until 1987 when Renfrew, by now the Disney professor of archaeology at Cambridge, returned to Keros to begin more serious excavation.

That led him to the discovery that the breakages were not the result of careless looting. "It became clear that this was a very strange site."

In 2006 Renfrew found an unlooted site of buried broken figurines and the remains of a settlement on an islet about 100 metres away, Dhaskalio.

There the team found evidence of a kind of bronze age guesthouse where visiting villagers would have congregated on their pilgrimage.

Geological examinations showed it was built from imported marble rather than the flaky local limestone.

The team had found – from around the same time the Pyramids were being built – evidence of huge amounts of marble being transported across the sea to build Dhaskalio.

Renfrew's theory is that Cycladic villagers would have used the figurines and bowls in a ritualistic way, perhaps carrying them in processions as icons are carried in Greek villages today.

"After they had been used for some time, perhaps decades, the time would come that it would go out of use," he said. So they were broken and fragments taken to "one remarkable ritual centre".

Renfrew said it was likely that the islanders would go to Keros at regular intervals, in much the same way that the ancient Greeks held the Olympics every four years.

"No doubt it was a ceremony of renewal – a new generation of icons being used and a new generation of people growing up."

The evidence suggests fragments were ritualistically deposited on Keros for about 400-500 years, until around 2000BC.

Renfrew said there were still many more puzzles at Keros and Dhaskalio to be answered. The latest research will be published as a basis for further investigations.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/jun/10/archaeology-mystery-keros-island-greece
[ Reply to This ]

Re: Keros by Flyvapnet on Saturday, 18 June 2011
(User Info | Send a Message)
Thank you very much, Andy, for posting this fascinating information! I'm something of a Bronze Age junkie and hence appreciate learning about these mysterious goings-on at ancient Keros.
[ Reply to This ]

Re: Keros by Runemage on Wednesday, 15 June 2011
(User Info | Send a Message)
I'd never heard of milagros but when I saw that image and read the article, my first thought was that they were some type of specific physical representation of an illness left at a sacred place for the god/genus loci/guardian to cure. Very unusual site.
[ Reply to This ]

Re: Keros by Anonymous on Tuesday, 14 June 2011
What an intriguing study. I wonder if the idea of milagro's or Exvotos was considered as some kind of explanation for the unusual offerings. Perhaps a broken plate or bowl would refer to filling up ones life like filling up a cup. An arm as a milagro might be for prayer to heal a diseased arm.(?) The whole place must be haunted with peoples prayer's (and goose-bumps from the awed visitors)!
[ Reply to This ]
    Keros mystery cracked by Andy B on Friday, 19 January 2018
    (User Info | Send a Message)
    Submitted by coldrum on Monday, 10 July 2006
    Archaeologists say they have discovered a 4,500-year-old ceremonial centre, the oldest ritual site in Greece. Excavations resumed for a few weeks this summer at Dhaskalio Kavos - Kavos for short - on the tiny island of Keros, after a lull of nearly 20 years.

    The problem with the site had been that it was disturbed by looters, who made a lucrative trade in the 1960s of the now famous minimalist Cycladic figurines. As a result, archaeologists could never be sure whether fragments of the Cycladic statuettes had been smashed in antiquity or more recently by smugglers.

    That puzzle has now been solved by this year's excavation on an undisturbed patch of the site dating to 2,500BC.

    "All the material found was already broken in fragments before it became buried in ancient times. Moreover, the rarity of joining pieces (as well as the different degree of weathering of the fragments) makes clear that they were broken elsewhere and that they were brought, already in fragmentary form," says an announcement from the team of Greek and British archaeologists who head the dig.

    Source: Athens News
    [ Reply to This ]

Your Name: Anonymous [ Register Now ]
Subject:


Add your comment or contribution to this page. Spam or offensive posts are deleted immediately, don't even bother

<<< What is five plus one as a number? (Please type the answer to this question in the little box on the left)
You can also embed videos and other things. For Youtube please copy and paste the 'embed code'.
For Google Street View please include Street View in the text.
Create a web link like this: <a href="https://www.megalithic.co.uk">This is a link</a>  

Allowed HTML is:
<p> <b> <i> <a> <img> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <tt> <li> <ol> <ul> <object> <param> <embed> <iframe>

We would like to know more about this location. Please feel free to add a brief description and any relevant information in your own language.
Wir möchten mehr über diese Stätte erfahren. Bitte zögern Sie nicht, eine kurze Beschreibung und relevante Informationen in Deutsch hinzuzufügen.
Nous aimerions en savoir encore un peu sur les lieux. S'il vous plaît n'hesitez pas à ajouter une courte description et tous les renseignements pertinents dans votre propre langue.
Quisieramos informarnos un poco más de las lugares. No dude en añadir una breve descripción y otros datos relevantes en su propio idioma.