Enigma Of Giant Statue Of Kouros Of Apollonas

Conny Waters - AncientPages.com - It’s a remarkable work of the ancients that, for some reason, was never finished.

The giant statue of Kouros of Apollonas has been lying on its back for centuries, and it remains unknown why its creators abandoned their masterpiece.

Kouros of Apollonas. Credit: Olaf Tausch - CC BY 3.0

Kouros of Apollonas, also known as Colossus of Dionysus, is a huge, 10.7 meter (35 foot) tall unfinished marble statue that can be found on the beautiful Greek island of Naxos, one of the Cycladic Islands in the Aegean Sea.

One should also not forget that the mysterious Cycladic culture produced marble figurines many centuries before the arising of the famous Minoan civilization.

Weighing approximately 80 tons, the construction of Kouros of Apollonas dates to sometime between the 5th and 4th centuries B.C.

Being located near the town of Apollonas, it was previously considered to represent the Greek God Apollo.

Today, most researchers agree this figure was made in the image of Dionysus, the Greek God of wine, music, and ritual madness.

Dionysus or Dionysos, was the God of the grape harvest, winemaking, and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. Credit: Gary Todd - Public Domain

Interestingly, the statue of Kouros of Apollonas looks like a perfect construction, but a closer look at the figure reveals the body’s proportions are a bit odd. For example, its left leg is longer than its right leg.

The figure’s arms are shaped like rudimentary rectangles, and the elbows are bent.

The statue is a kouros, a modern term given to Greek sculptures that first appear in the Archaic period in Greece and represent nude male youths. However, it’s a bit misleading because Kouros of Apollonas was never meant to represent a naked, young male.

As one of the oldest quarries in Greece, Kouros of Apollonas was made in the image of an old man with a beard.

There could be several reasons why this ancient wonder was never completed. One possible explanation is that the statue was simply too heavy to transport to the place where it was intended to be raised.

 The statue of Kouros of Apollonas was never completed. Credit: Zde - CC BY-SA 4.0

The statue also has several cracks, and maybe its builders were worried it would be destroyed or break while cutting it out of the ground.

We can only speculate why the giant statue of Kouros of Apollonas was left unfinished. However, at least we can be grateful we still have the opportunity to admire the remains of this beautiful ancient marble work.

Updated on February 12, 2022

Written by Conny Waters – AncientPages.com Staff Writer

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