A photo released…
A photo released yesterday by the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens shows an assortment of smashed 4,500-year-old figurines in the museum’s collection from the Aegean islet of Keros, loacated near Naxos. Greek and British archaeologists are preparing a major excavation on Keros, scheduled to start in April and run through to June, to try and explain why it produced history’s largest collection of Cycladic flat-faced marble figurines. Artwork from Keros inspired artists such as Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore. It has also attracted looters, as the islet was extensively pillaged during the 1950s and 1960s for its marble figurines, hundreds of which were illegally exported to fill museums and private collections in Europe, the USA, Australia and Japan.
