In an ancient quarry near the village Apóllonas in the north of Naxos lies a large, unfinished marble statue, the Kouros. On the whole hill many traces of the marble quarrying are still visible today, and another smaller statue lies inaccessibly in the scrub under the road.
the Kouros of Apollonas
view from the Kouros to the village of Apollonas
The quarry in which the Kouros is located is one of the most important marble quarries of the early Archaic period, not only on Naxos, but also in the wider area. It was in use probably from the Mycenaean to the Classical period and it might well be the oldest marble quarry in Greece. Marble blocks and statues from the quarry of Apóllonas are not only found on Naxos, but also on Delos, in the Acropolis and even in Delphi.
All over the hill lie outcroppings of good white marble, some of which still show traces of processing.
Directly by the road lies this marble rock, from which a large block was being cut; a deep notch has been made at both ends.
The Kouros is an extraordinarily large statue: It is over 10 meters long, and thus even slightly larger than the Colossus of Delos, a statue representing the god Apollo, the largest marble statue ever erected in Greece, which also came from Naxos.
The Kouros lies on his back and has been roughly shaped: Head, legs and arms are clearly visible. The finer carving was probably made only when the statue had been transported to its destination, so that damage during transport could be avoided as much as possible.
Most likely the statue should depict the god Dionysus, the main god of the island (recognizable, for example, by the beard).
The Kouros is dated to the 6th century BC. We do not know why it was not completed – perhaps a damage occurred in the marble, or political changes where responsible for the abandonment of the large project. We know anyway that the quarry was still used for a long time.
The naxiotic technique of marble sculpturing
The Kouros of Apóllonas is one of the first monumental statues in Greece. For more than fifty years, such larger than life statues were made of all Greece only on Naxos: The island played a very important role in the development of Greek marble sculpturing. From Naxos numerous statues were exported to other parts of Greece. Also, the technique of marble processing spread from here: Not only statues of Naxian marble are found in many parts of Greece, but also statues of local marble in naxian style.
The art of marble processing and the making of statues has a particularly long tradition on Naxos. In the early Bronze Age, in the third millennium BC, Naxos was an important center for the production of the famous Cycladic idols, small, abstracted, carefully crafted marble statuettes. The fact that Naxos was a pioneer in the development of marble sculpturing is not only related to the good marble of the island, but also the emery which is unique to the island. We know that the emery was used during the Bronze Age for the processing of marble: The early sculptors used for example emery powder to hollow out and smoothen their work.
The Naxian marble sculpturing is based on the Egyptian techniques of sculpturing, as can be seen with the Kouros of Apóllonas. Many features of the statue coincide with those of Egyptian statues, such as the proportions, the leg position (left leg a bit forward), the arm posture (to the elbow close to the body, then angled), the head posture (face exactly forward) and the hairstyle (resembles the typical Egyptian style). Almost all the early Greek figures are designed in this way, while the later figures abandon the strict posture and become “mobile” (for example, the Kouros in Mélanes, which retains some aspects of the early “Egyptian” posture, but stands in a much looser way).
The Kouros is very similar in body posture to the early Egyptian sculptures.
Other important Naxian sculptures were also designed after Egyptian models, so the famous Lions on Delos and the Sphinx in Delphi. The similarity with Egyptian monuments is sometimes so great that one must assume that the Naxian sculptors had travelled personally to Egypt and seen the originals with their own eyes.
The processing of the rock
The old sculptors used hammers, chisels, iron drills and wedges to work the marble. For the production of the Kouros, the rock around the figure was gradually taken away with hammer and chisel. In the process, a trench was worked into the rock, large enough for the workers to sit in it. The marble was removed in layers; the resulting horizontal grooves are still clearly visible. On the statue itself one can see the marks resulting from the chiseling off of small pieces of marble with hammer and chisel.
In the back of the statue, the rock was removed layer by layer, so that a small ditch was created. On its sides the grooves resulting from the chiseling can still be seen. Here you look in the direction of the head.
in the ditch behind the figure, looking towards the feet
In the wall next to the feet a hole has been drilled, probably for some some purpose connected to the work.
The surface of the statue is covered with marks that resulted from the chiseling of the marble.
The Kouros would certainly not have remained in Apóllonas, but was meant to be transported for example to the important sanctuary of Dionysus at Íria near the Chóra or to Délos to the Sanctuary of Apollo. The statues were carried to their destination by ship. First of course, they had to be transported to the port in Apóllonas, for which a smooth ramp must have existed right to the port by the sea. The large statues were probably pulled along the ramp with the help of oxen. Remains of an ancient mole are preserved in the harbor bay of Apóllonas.
In the bay of Apóllonas near the harbor you can see the remains of the ancient pier.
The ancient pier was made of large boulders.
Today it seems rather incredible that the ancient workers succeeded in loading the large statues onto ships without machines such as modern cranes. The largest statues or marble blocks were transported suspended between two ships in the water. From the port of arrival they then often had to travel long distances over land: Marble statues from Naxos were transported not only to the Acropolis in Athens but even to Delphi, which lies a good 600 m high in the mountains.
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