5 May 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

The 11-meter giant statue of the island of Naxos “Dionysus of Apollonas”

One of the two ancient marble quarries, thought to have begun the sculpture, the greatest art of antiquity, is located near the coastal settlement of Apollonas of Naxos, the largest of the Cyclades group of islands in the Southern Aegean.

Naxos has a great wealth of monuments from various eras that attest to the cultural changes that occurred in the Aegean over the centuries due to its geology, history, size, and location.

The road from Hora to the northern village of Apollonas is 37 kilometers long. A little above the village of Apollonas, there is the Apollon quarry, one of the rare stone quarries whose name has been known since ancient times.

On the hill and slopes of the former quarry, one can still see the enormous but unfinished 11-meter statue (Kouros) of Dionysus, as well as numerous fragments of other unfinished statues, architectural building pieces, chisel marks, and carved surfaces.

The Kouros is an extraordinarily large statue: 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.

Photo: Wikipedia

A monumental statue that descriptions do not do justice to, because it is more than important, more than majestic.

It’s almost unimaginable that, on an island in the middle of the Aegean, at a spot next to a touristic seaside village, a supine statue 10.7 meters long and weighing 80 tons has survived for 27 centuries, in the very same ancient quarry where it was originally created. The Kouros of Apollonas, also called the Colossus of Dionysus is a sight that everyone should see at least once.

The top of the hill above the quarry features an inscription that reads “ΟΡΟΣ ΙΕΡΟΝ ΧΩΡΙΟΥ ΑΠΟΛΛΩΝΟΣ” (“Holy Mountain of Apollo”). It dates to the 7th-6th century BC and probably belongs to a sanctuary of the god that existed there.

Because it was near the town of Apollonas, the statue was previously thought to be an Apollo statue. Because of its proximity to the Apollo sanctuary, Bondelmonte referred to it as a “statue Apollonis” in the fifteenth century. In 1840, Ludwig Ross referred to it as the Statue of Apollo. Although Wilhelm von Massow identified the statue as Dionysos in 1932, the name stuck for a long time. It is now classified as a kouros.

Colossus of Dionysus.

Most kouros statues depict naked young men with their arms at their sides. It is clear, however, that the Kouros of Apollonas was to be a depiction of an older man with a beard, with his right arm stretched out in front of him.

The figure is roughly carved, but the body, head with beard and ears, and beginning of the hair are all discernible. The stonemasons have cut the arms as rudimentary rectangles, and the shaping of the feet has begun; they are set on a 50 cm high plinth.

The archaic kouroi have usually been interpreted as depictions of Apollo. On account of its beard, the Kouros of Apollonas has instead been interpreted as the Greek god Dionysus.

Archaeologists believe that those statues were predestined to hold on to a temple roof, but their ancient sculptors abandoned them due to faults in the marble and stone used. The paradox in the case of this particular Kouros is that it did not come off after it was made, although there are no obvious defects in its construction.

It is a monument of immense value, because it is located in its natural environment and not in some museum, a fact which helps the viewer better appreciate the culture that developed on the islands during antiquity.

Related Articles

Excavations at the site in the coastal city of São Luís, Brazil uncovered thousands of artifacts left by ancient peoples up to 9,000 years ago

4 February 2024

4 February 2024

Archaeologists unearthed 43 human skeletons and more than 100,000 artifacts at an excavation site in the coastal city of São...

A Remarkable Underground City Discovered Beneath Historic Yazd Homes in Central Iran

26 January 2025

26 January 2025

A remarkable ‘underground city’ was discovered under five historical houses in the ancient town of Abarkuh in Yazd province in...

What Did Mummies Smell Like in Ancient Egypt? The Surprisingly Pleasant Results Revealed

1 April 2025

1 April 2025

A groundbreaking study led by researchers from University College London’s Institute for Sustainable Heritage and the University of Ljubljana has...

Archaeologists discovered a dragon made of mussel shells in in Inner Mongolia

26 August 2023

26 August 2023

Archaeologists discovered a dragon made of mussel shells earlier this week in Chifeng, North China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which...

The 3400-year-old city belonging to a mysterious Kingdom emerged from the Tigris river

30 May 2022

30 May 2022

Archaeologists from Germany and Kurdistan have discovered a 3,400-year-old Mittani Empire-era city on the Tigris River. The ruins emerged on...

Giant handaxe discovered at Ice Age site in Kent, UK

8 July 2023

8 July 2023

Researchers in Kent in southeastern England have discovered a prehistoric handaxe so big it would have been almost impossible to...

Female pharaoh’s temple reveals teamwork of Egypt’s ‘ancient masters’

18 November 2021

18 November 2021

Despite the widely acknowledged monumentality and durability of ancient Egyptian sculpture, carved reliefs, and paintings the makers of these works...

Oldest found human traces on Roof of the World, Is it art?

21 October 2021

21 October 2021

Dr. David Zhang and his team’s investigations of Quesang on the Tibetan Plateau in 2018 and 2020 sparked controversy, along...

New discoveries have been made at a 9,000-year-old Amida mound in Turkey

1 January 2022

1 January 2022

The most recent archeological investigations at the 9,000-year-old Amida Mound in southeastern Turkey’s Diyarbakir province have uncovered fresh finds that...

Researchers may have uncovered the ruins of one of the largest ancient cafeterias for a Buddhist temple

9 February 2025

9 February 2025

Researchers have made a groundbreaking discovery at the site of the Yamashiro Kokubunji temple, revealing what is believed to be...

Bergama Ancient City Takes Its Place in Digital Environment

1 February 2021

1 February 2021

As a result of the studies carried out by the German Institute, Bergama Ancient City was It was transferred to...

No Ancient Super-Highway: The Reality of Europe’s Erdstall and the Scotland-Türkiye Tunnel

28 April 2025

28 April 2025

The internet continues to buzz with the captivating notion of an immense, prehistoric tunnel network stretching from the Scottish Highlands,...

Climate and Archaic humans caused the extinction of giant camels that lived in Mongolia 27,000 years ago, a study says

3 April 2022

3 April 2022

Camelus knoblochi, a species of giant two-humped camel, survived in Mongolia alongside modern humans—and perhaps Neanderthals and Denisovans—until about 27,000...

Incredible Mayan Inventions and Achievements

31 July 2022

31 July 2022

The Mayans excelled at agriculture, pottery, writing, calendars, and arithmetic, leaving an incredible quantity of spectacular architecture and symbolic artwork...

A large hall from the time of Viking Harald Bluetooth discovered

26 December 2022

26 December 2022

A large hall from the reign of King Harald Bluetooth of Denmark and Norway was unearthed during housing construction work...