This is a wonderful work of the ancients, which for some reason was never finished.
The giant statue of Kuros has been lying on its back for centuries, and it is unknown why its creators left their masterpiece.
Kouros of Apollon, also known as the Colossus of Dionysus, is a huge unfinished marble statue 10.7 meters high that can be found on the beautiful Greek island of Naxos, one of the Cyclades islands in the Aegean Sea.
It should also not be forgotten that the mysterious Cycladic culture produced marble figurines many centuries before the rise of the famous Minoan civilization.
Weighing about 80 tons, the statue of Kouros dates back to about 5-4 centuries BC.
Since the statue is located near the city of Apollonas, it was previously thought to represent the Greek god Apollo.
Most researchers today agree that this figure was modeled after Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, music and ritual madness.
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. Image: public domain.
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Interestingly, the Kuros statue looks like a perfect construction, but a closer look at the figure shows that the proportions of the body are a little strange. For example, his left leg is longer than his right.
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 appeared in the Archaic era in Greece and represent naked youths. However, this is a bit misleading because the Apollo Kouros was never meant to represent a naked young man. Kuros was made in the form of an old man with a beard.
There may be several reasons why this ancient miracle was never completed. One possible explanation is that the statue was simply difficult to transport to the place where it was supposed to be installed.
The statue of Kouros of Apollon was not completed.
The statue also has several cracks, and its builders may have feared that it would be destroyed or broken in the process of being carved out of the ground.
We can only guess why the giant statue of Kuros of Apollo remained unfinished, but at least we can be grateful that we still have the opportunity to admire the remains of this beautiful ancient marble work.