Keros ( el, Κέρος; anciently, Keria or Kereia ( grc, Κέρεια) is an uninhabited and unpopulated

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

in the

Cyclades The Cyclades (; el, Κυκλάδες, ) are an island group in the Aegean Sea, southeast of mainland Greece and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name ...

about southeast of

Naxos Naxos (; el, Νάξος, ) is a Greek island and the largest of the Cyclades. It was the centre of archaic Cycladic culture. The island is famous as a source of emery, a rock rich in corundum, which until modern times was one of the best ab ...

. Administratively it is part of the

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, ...

Koufonisia Koufonisia ( el, Κουφονήσια) is a former community in the Cyclades, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Naxos and Lesser Cyclades, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area ...

. It has an area of and its highest point is . It was an important site to the

Cycladic civilization Cycladic culture (also known as Cycladic civilisation or, chronologically, as Cycladic chronology) was a Bronze Age culture (c. 3200–c. 1050 BC) found throughout the islands of the Cyclades in the Aegean Sea. In chronological terms, it is a rel ...

that flourished around 2500 BC. It is now forbidden to land in Keros. Keros is especially noted for the flat-faced Cycladic marble statues which later inspired the work of

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

and Henry Moore.

Keros hoard

The "Keros Hoard" is a very large deposit of Cycladic figurines that was found on the island of Keros. In 2006-2008, the Cambridge Keros Project, co-directed by Colin Renfrew with others, conducted excavations at Kavos on the west coast of the island. This general area is believed to be the source of the so-called "Keros Hoard" of fragmentary Cycladic figurines. The material excavated in 2006-2008 includes Cycladic figurines, vessels and other objects made of marble, all broken prior to deposition and most likely broken elsewhere and brought to Kavos for deposition. The lack of joining fragments shows that only a part of the broken material was deposited here, while ongoing studies of the pottery and other material show that material was brought from multiple sources for deposition here.

Daskalio

Harp player, Cycladic civilization - Greece

In 2007–2008, the same project identified and excavated a substantial Cycladic period settlement on the nearby island of

Daskalio Daskalio ( el, Δασκαλιό) is a tiny, uninhabited Greek islet in the Cyclades just off the west coast of the larger island Keros Keros ( el, Κέρος; anciently, Keria or Kereia ( grc, Κέρεια) is an uninhabited and unpopulated Gre ...

. A large area has been excavated, revealing a substantial building 16 metres long and 4 metres wide — the largest from this period in the Cyclades — within which was discovered the ‘Daskalio hoard’ 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 its surface — a total of 7000 square meters — was occupied during the Early Bronze Age, making this the largest site in the Cyclades. Specialist studies for the geomorphology, geology, petrology, ceramic petrology, metallurgy and environmental aspects (botanical and faunal remains, phytoliths) ensued. In 2012, the activities at this site were dated 2750 to 2300 BC, which precedes any identified worship of gods in the Aegean. In 2018, excavations revealed the remains of massive terraced walls and giant gleaming structures on a tiny islet that was once attached to Keros. The structures were built using 1,000 tons of stone, turning the headland, which measures just across, into a single, giant 'pyramid'. Beneath the pyramid, researchers found evidence of a complex drainage tunnels and traces of advanced metalworking. The researchers say the remains make the island one of the most impressive archaeological sites of the Aegean Sea during the Early Bronze Age. The excavations show that the headland of Dhaskalio, which was once attached to Keros but is now a tiny islet because of

sea level rise Globally, sea levels are rising due to human-caused climate change. Between 1901 and 2018, the globally averaged sea level rose by , or 1–2 mm per year on average.IPCC, 2019Summary for Policymakers InIPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cry ...

, was almost entirely covered by remarkable monuments. In 2019, archaeologists believe that ancient Greeks embarked on at least 3,500 maritime voyages to transport between 7,000 to 10,000 tonnes of white marble among islands, in order to construct the aforementioned pyramid.

Keros-Syros culture

Keros-Syros culture is named after the two islands in the Cyclades—Keros and

Syros Syros ( el, Σύρος ), also known as Siros or Syra, is a Greek island in the Cyclades, in the Aegean Sea. It is south-east of Athens. The area of the island is and it has 21,507 inhabitants (2011 census). The largest towns are Ermoupoli, An ...

. This culture flourished during the Early Cycladic II period (ca 2700-2300 BC). Some of the best preserved sites of this culture are at

Kea The kea (; ; ''Nestor notabilis'') is a species of large parrot in the family Nestoridae found in the forested and alpine regions of the South Island of New Zealand. About long, it is mostly olive-green with a brilliant orange under its wing ...

and

Ios iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

, located not far from Keros. Some of the important artifacts of this culture are the so-called

frying pans Frying pans is the descriptive name for Early Cycladic II artifacts from the Aegean Islands, flat skillets with a "handle", usually made from earthenware but sometimes stone ( Frying pan (Karlsruhe 75/11) is an example). They are found especi ...

– shallow circular vessels or bowls with a decorated base. The use of metal became widespread during this period.

References

Bibliography

*Cyprian Broodbank: ''An Island Archaeology of the Early Cyclades''. Cambridge University Press, 2002, *Mariya Ivanova: ''Befestigte Siedlungen auf dem Balkan, in der Ägäis und in Westanatolien, ca. 5000-2000 v. Chr..'' Waxmann Verlag, 2008, * Colin Renfrew, Christos Doumas, Lila Marangou, Giorgos Gavelas: ''Dhaskalio icKavos, Keros: The Investigations of 1987–88''. In: N. J. Brodie, J. Doole, G. Gavalas, C. Renfrew (Hrsg.): ''Horizon – a colloquium on the prehistory of the Cyclades''. Cambridge, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2008, , S. 107–113 * Panayiota Sotorakopoulou: ''Dhaskalio icKavos, Keros: The pottery from the Investigations of the 1960s''. In: N. J. Brodie, J. Doole, G. Gavalas, C. Renfrew (Hrsg.): ''Horizon – a colloquium on the prehistory of the Cyclades''. Cambridge, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2008, , S. 115–120 * Colin Renfrew et al.: ''Keros – Dhaskelion icand Kavos, Early Cycladic Stronghold and Ritual Center. Preliminary Report of the 2006 and 2007 Excavation Seasons.'' In: '' The Annual of the British School at Athens'' 102, 2007, S. 103–136 (1. Teil der Vorberichte zum Cambridge Keros Project) * Colin Renfrew et al.: ''The Early Cycladic Settlement at Dhaskalio ic Keros – Preliminary Report of the 2008 Excavation Season.'' In: ''The Annual of the British School at Athens,'' 104, 2009, S. 27–47 (2. Teil der Vorberichte zum Cambridge Keros Project)

External links