Cyclades Marble

Marble has always been an abundant and familiar material on Naxos. The craftsmen of Naxos were highly sought after, and the fortunes they made from the marble allowed them to dedicate expensive offerings of their own to the gods.

These craftsmen were the first people to build entire structures of pure and unalloyed marble, and there is a legend that Byzes and his son Euergos, both sculptors and builders, were the first craftsmen to make marble tiles. 

The large statues of nude men and clothed women, known to be from Naxos, are among the earliest of their type found in Greece. Among the best-known example is the Artemis (650 B.C.), housed in the National Archeological Museum in Athens. 

Equally significant are the nude male statues of the Kouroi (7th century B.C.), and the 25-feet tall marble Apollo raised on Delos by the Naxians (600 B.C.). 

Among the other imposing examples of Naxian works are the enormous lions of Delos, dedicated to Apollo by the Naxians. 

But the most impressive pieces of all are those that were never finished. These colossal statues are chronologically dated after the Homeric epics, which presented the gods in a form very different from that of the old earth deities, who were represented by small idols. The gods were anthropomorphic, but also "much taller than the average tall man." Marble Statues

It is precisely this new concept which the Kouroi statues represented. The popular name for the Kourois was "Ellinas" ("Greek") and comes from the ancient "kouros" (7th century B.C.). The Kouroi statues measures 6.40 meters tall. They are unique relics in the history of ancient Greek sculpture and, particularly that of Naxos'. 

An example of Kouroi in Naxos is named "Dionysus." It lies in the village of Apollonas and is more than 30 feet long. 

The oldest buildings on Delos and most of the things Delos has to offer are Naxian. The community of Naxios dedicated a number of valuable vessels to Apollo of Delos and also a number of highly impressive monuments such as the Sphinx of Delphi to the other shrines of the gods.

Among the most recent discoveries is a temple of Demeter at Gyroulas -- a building with a marble roof and a large temple (13.5 meters x 25 meters). This temple was built in the mid-6th century and functioned for nine consecutive centuries until its violent destruction in the 3rd century AD. 

This find is of great importance to the history of Greek architecture because the temple was built at a time when the transition from granite to marble was being made.