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
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