The Greek Islands: Broken idols of Keros

via Wikimedia Commons

I first encountered Cycladic figures like the one on the right at the British Museum in grad school. My husband and I were on a quickie tour of Europe following our trip to Rome. At the time (this is a little embarrassing) I thought something like, "oh look, they didn't know how to sculpt realistic face or varied body postures."

Now of course, having visited Greece and in particular the excellent small Cycladic Art Museum in Athens, I know better. These figures (which nearly all look exactly like the illustration to this post) represent the dead. Their similarity perhaps had religious significance, and they were carried in processions. A very odd archeological site on the island of Keros in the Aegean Sea has added a new wrinkle. It seems that periodically the old figurines were smashed, presumably so that new one could be created. That seems to be the only explanation for the pits full of broken figurines discovered at the site. Check out this article at the Guardian's web site for more. They have a particularly nice illustration with some of the fragments where you can discern the folded arms, triangular nose, etc.

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