Monumentality, Diversity and Fragmentation in Early Cycladic Sculpture: the finds from the Special Deposit North at Kavos on Keros (The sanctuary on Keros and the origins of Aegean ritual practice)

The sanctuary at Kavos on Keros was discovered in 1963 in the aftermath of looting in the region of the sanctuary now designated the Special Deposit North. From 2006-2008, excavations in the Special Deposit South (now fully published in Volumes II and III of the present series), clarified the nature of the deposits and the materials found there. This volume publishes the sculptural fragments from the Special Deposit North, recovered in excavations in 1963 and 1967, in a campaign of surface survey and excavation in 1987, and collected by archaeologists over the past six decades, or discovered by locals. The material is better preserved than most of the material from the Special Deposit South, and offers important insights into earlier phases of Cycladic sculpture, monumental sculptures, and sculptures of special type, such as seated or standing figures, including musicians and groups. The present volume completes the publication of the entire sculptural assemblage recovered in approved excavations from the sanctuary at Kavos, and a number of conclusions are offered on the basis of the complete assemblage.

Colin Renfrew (Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn) was formerly Disney Professor of Archaeology and Director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in the University of Cambridge, and Master of Jesus College Cambridge from 1986 to 1997. He has excavated at a number of sites in prehistoric Greece and in the Orkney Islands, and is the author of many publications, including Prehistory: the making of the human mind (2008). He is Fellow of the British Academy, Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, and was the recipient of the Balzan Prize in 2004.

Peggy Sotirakopoulou holds a PhD from the University of Athens and has been lecturer in the University of Crete and Curator at the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens. Her doctoral research was published as a monograph on the neolithic and early bronze age pottery of Akrotiri, Thera, and she is author of The 'Keros Hoard': Myth or Reality, and (with N.C. Stampolidis) Aegean Waves: Artworks of the Early Cycladic Culture. She has co-edited an exhibition catalogue on the Cyclades and Western Anatolia, and is currently co-editing a volume on the Early Cycladic sculpture of Crete, co-authoring a volume on the marble figurine fragments from the Special Deposit North at Kavos, and authoring volume V in the present series on the pottery from Kavos.

Michael Boyd is a Senior Research Associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge. His main research interests lie in the archaeology of death and in the prehistoric Aegean, where he has worked in the Peloponnese and Cyclades. He is co-director of current excavations on Keros and co-editor of the Keros publications series. He has published a book on Mycenaean funerary practices, and is co-editing a volume on funerary archaeology, Staging Death, and another on the origins of play and ritual. He has worked widely in Greece and Bulgaria.