A special place The origins of modern exploration of the site lie in those fragmented marble figurines having drawn visitors to Keros once more, but this time to loot rather than deposit them. In the 1960s, the site came to the attention of Christos Doumas of the Greek Archaeological Service, who mentioned the problem to a young doctoral student studying the Cycladic islands at Cambridge. ‘My involvement goes all the way back to 1963,’ remembers Colin Renfrew, co-director of the project and Senior Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. ‘Prof. Doumas – as he now is – suggested I visited the island, where there was broken pottery, marble bowls, and a few broken figurines strewn about the place. I undertook surface collection, and then later that year Prof. Doumas did a small excavation and found a few traces of buildings. Later, his colleague Mrs Zapheiropoulou excavated further and formed the view that the artefacts had been broken by the looters.’

‘In 1987, Christos Doumas, Lila Marangou, and I received a permit to undertake surface exploration. Survey at that time found some indication of marble bits and pieces further to the south of the looted deposit. Some years later, I thought it would be worthwhile to excavate the area properly, so in 2006 I led a project looking at both the looted site and this area to the south. It proved to be another – undisturbed – special deposit, and it became clear that the material had been deliberately broken elsewhere before being carried from other islands, probably in a respectful manner, and deposited at the site. In 2007 and 2008, we had a good look at the islet of Dhaskalio, which we have concentrated on since work resumed in 2016.’

Excavations have revealed that the sanctuary was the focus of activity from c.2750-2550 BC, before attention turned to Dhaskalio. From around 2550-2400 BC, work was under way refashioning the rocky outcrop into a settlement with buildings supported on marble terraces, created using tonnes of stone imported by sea. This material was probably quarried from the south-eastern tip of Naxos, which lay 10km distant. Meanwhile, the left Colin Renfrew’s association with Keros stretches back to

1963. This photograph was taken en route to Keros in 1987, when Colin Renfrew (left), Lila Marangou (centre), and Christos Doumas (right) undertook surface exploration of the island. One result of the work was the discovery of broken marble objects to the south of the looted site, which eventually proved to be another deposit.

frequency of objects being added to the special deposits at the bays gradually dwindled. Finally, between c.24002300 BC a set of monumental buildings was built on the summit of Dhaskalio, by which time the promontory had completely supplanted the sanctuary in terms of importance. It was not to last, though, and occupation at the site petered out in the years after 2300 BC. Excavation has been teasing out the connection between the sanctuary and the settlement.

‘Clearly Dhaskalio and the sanctuary are a pair’, explains Colin, ‘but you only find the broken bowls and sculptures in the special deposits. There are absolutely no fragments of sculptures from the settlement, and their complete absence is very striking. On the other hand, this does not mean that the settlement was just an ordinary one: it may well have had symbolic status and functions. We have come to the conclusion that the numbers of people at the settlement increased significantly at certain times,

left Excavation in 2006 revealed the existence of a second, southern special deposit. Examination of in situ remnants of the marble sculptures and other objects (beloW) demonstrated that they had been broken elsewhere before being transported to Keros.

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