The Colossus of the Naxians is a

kouros kouros ( grc, κοῦρος, , plural kouroi) is the modern term given to free-standing Ancient Greek sculptures that depict nude male youths. They first appear in the Archaic period in Greece and are prominent in Attica and Boeotia, with a less ...

statue made of

Naxian marble Naxian marble is a large-crystaled white marble which is quarried from the Cycladic Island of Naxos in Greece. It was among the most significant types of marble for ancient Greece and it continues to be quarried in modern times. Creation, mineral ...

which was about 9 metres high,Giuliani: ''Meisterwerke''. p. 13. now located in the Museum on

Delos The island of Delos (; el, Δήλος ; Attic: , Doric: ), near Mykonos, near the centre of the Cyclades archipelago, is one of the most important mythological, historical, and archaeological sites in Greece. The excavations in the island are ...

and originally from one of the islands of the

Cyclades The Cyclades (; el, Κυκλάδες, ) are an island group in the Aegean Sea, southeast of mainland Greece and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The nam ...

. The colossus is an example of archaic monumental sculpture and dates to the end of the seventh century BC. The colossus is one of the largest kouros statues yet known. Only the Kouros of Apollonas, which remains unfinished in the quarry at , is larger at 10.7 m tall. The Colossus of the Naxians is now broken into many pieces.

Statue

An inscription on the front of the base reported by

Cyriacus of Ancona Cyriacus of Ancona or Ciriaco de' Pizzicolli (31 July 1391 – 1453/55) was a restlessly itinerant Italian humanist and antiquarian who came from a prominent family of merchants in Ancona, a maritime republic on the Adriatic. He has been called ...

in the fifteenth century read "ΝΑΞΙΟΙ ΑΠΟΛΛΩΝΙ" (''Naxioi Apolloni'', "The Naxians (dedicated this) to Apollo"), so the marble sculpture is probably of

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

Description

The statue is broken into several parts. The base measures 3.48 x 5.08 metres, the upper torso is about 2.3 metres high and the lower torso is about 1.15 metres. The left foot, which is now kept in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

is 0.57 metres long. There was a hole in the left hand to allow it to hold a bow. The head and the upper legs have been lost. On the upper side of the lower torso there was a 20–30 cm wide bronze belt, which may have been discerned from the series of pinholes in the marble. On the sides of the upper torso, about 40 cm above the belt are holes into which the arms were fastened. On the neck are traces of ringlets. On the back of the base is an inscription which reads " ��̑ ἀϝυτο̑ λίθο̄ ε̄̓μὶ ἀνδριὰς καὶ τὸ σφέλας" (, "I am the same stone – both statue and base").

Transport and erection

The colossus originated at a marble quarry near on the Cycladian island of Naxos. It was not carved there, except for the most basic shaping and was transported to the port of

Naxos Naxos (; el, Νάξος, ) is a Greek island and the largest of the Cyclades. It was the centre of archaic Cycladic culture. The island is famous as a source of emery, a rock rich in corundum, which until modern times was one of the best abr ...

, about ten kilometres away. The figure, which weighs about 30 tonnes, was then transported by ship to Delos. There were ships which could transport more than 40 tonnes, but the load was difficult to transport. Therefore, it has been suggested that the half-worked colossus was transported by two ships yoked together.Gruben: ''Naxos und Delos''. S. 267. Anm. 13 (siehe Literatur). For the erection of the Colossus, a scaffold about 11 metres high would have been erected in order to pull it upright with pulleys and ropes. The statue stood in a prominent place, so that it could be seen from a distance and was taller than all known buildings on the island at the time. The statue would have had a weight of about 25 tonnes at this point; final details of the statue were only added after the statue had been set up.

References

Bibliography

* Carl Blümel. ''Griechische Bildhauer an der Arbeit.'' 2nd Edition. Berlin 1941. *

Gottfried Gruben Gottfried is a masculine German given name. It is derived from the Old High German name , recorded since the 7th century. The name is composed of the elements (conflated from the etyma for 'God' and 'good', and possibly further conflated with ) a ...

. "Naxos und Delos." pp. 262 ff. In: ''Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts'' 1998. Edited by the Deutsche Archäologische Institut. Walter De Gruyter. Berlin 1998,
partially accessible online
. * Luca Giuliani: "Der Koloss der Naxier." In Luca Giuliani (ed.): ''Meisterwerke der antiken Kunst.'' C. H. Beck Verlag, München 2005.

partially accessible online).

External links