It is an assemblage of several hundred objects of Cycladic style, consisting of intact marble figurines and deliberately broken pieces of figurines, marble and clay vessels, stone tools and small objects, dating between 2800 - 2300 BC. without knowing their exact origin. This set comes from antiquarian activity, it was illegally exported from Greece in the 50s, but now, part of the "Treasure" has been repatriated and is in the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens.
It is probable that the "Treasure of Keros" comes from the site "Kavos Daskaleou", on the west coast of the island, where, despite its extensive and destructive destruction in the past, the excavation research identified an outdoor area with numerous broken figurines, marble vessels and pottery sherds. This area is not a settlement, cemetery or workshop, since the objects found are not unfinished, but broken on purpose. It has been hypothesized that this may be a mosque or a depository of broken objects of a symbolic nature, deliberately placed there as part of a ritual. It has also been argued that perhaps Keros was the sacred island of the Cyclades, the "gateway to the Underworld", where all the neighboring islands placed the bones of their dead and performed related rituals.
It is therefore difficult to interpret the exact role played by Keros during the Proto-Cycladic period, however, perhaps the identification of a Proto-Cycladic fortified settlement and cemetery on the Daskaleio islet, which in Antiquity was connected to the coast of Keros, will be able to contribute to a more complete interpretation the importance of the island.
Editor: Fotini Anastasopoulou