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Modern Description: East of Melanés is the village of Kour[ou]nochóri (6.5km), where the Mavrogenis/Della Rocca Tower rises conspicuously above the village roof-scape. The road descends to Flerio (10.5km): this is the site of two *unfinished marble kouroi, which constitute one of the most fascinating remains in the Cyclades. A path leads left from where the road ends along a plane-shaded torrent-bed, and then cuts alongside a garden of citrus trees to the right: just above the orchard, you unexpectedly come upon the first kouros lying in a small walled enclosure beneath some ilex trees. The massive supine figure, 5.8m long, is, beneath the dark patination of its surface, in pure white marble. It lies in the place where the uncut block was initially detached from the bedrock of the island. This is clear from the chiselled striations and workings of the stone in the immediate vicinity. After the piece had been given an approximate form and principal characteristics as a kouros—i.e. a nude, standing, heroic, male figure—it was moved through 90 degrees from the position in which it was originally roughed out. Then the piece was abandoned, never worked again and left unfinished, probably because a fault in the marble at the shins of the figure (structurally its weakest point) caused the stone to fracture. It still lies in the same spot where it was created, abandoned, and accidentally discovered again in 1943.
The kouros dates most probably from the first half of the 6th century BC. In this early period, sculptors travelled to where the stone was, rather than the stone travelling to the sculptor's workshop. This, however, left the substantial problem of transportation. It is possible that the pieces were intended for the sanctuary recently uncovered some 50–100m to the north of the abandoned kouros. More probably the kouroi would have been created for export to another island—as in the case of the huge, monolithic statue of Apollo which was dedicated and given by the Naxiots to the sanctuary at Delos around 600 BC.
The whole surface of the Flerio kouros is covered in small and regular circular depressions left by the sculptors' tools. The ‘dimples' reveal that the sculptor has used a hammering stroke, perpendicular to the surface of the stone. This is a laborious way to work stone: a perpendicular stroke soon blunts a tool, which then constantly requires sharpening. These perpendicular strokes were used because the sculptors' tools were not of hard enough metal for any other method.

Info: McGilchrist's Greek Islands

(From McGilchrist’s Greek Islands, © Nigel McGilchrist 2010, excerpted with his gracious permission. Click for the books)

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