The Archaic Giants: The Kouros of Melanes & Apollonas and the 530 BC Temple of Demeter

Before Athens quarried Pentelic marble, Naxos and Paros were the birthplace of monumental Greek marble sculpture and architecture in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. Even more remarkably, when ancient Naxian sculptors were carving 6-to-10-metre-tall monolithic statues inside the mountain quarries and a hairline crack appeared in the marble, they simply put down their chisels and left the giant statues lying on the ground in the olive and oleander valleys, where you can walk up and touch them for free today.

1. The Sanctuary of Demeter and Apollo at Sangri

Located 11 kilometres south of Naxos Town near Ano Sangri, the Temple of Demeter was built around 530 BC, almost a full century before the Parthenon in Athens. Restored using over 50 percent of its original blocks (with a superb small onsite museum, completely free to enter, closed Tuesdays):

• Translucent Marble Roof Tiles: built on a rare square plan using 100% white Naxian marble from base to roof, its ceiling was covered in thinly sliced marble roof tiles that allowed soft, natural sunlight to glow right through the stone into the inner sanctuary during the secret Eleusinian fertility rites.

2. The Two Kouros Statues of Flerio

In the lush, spring-fed valley of Flerio, the exact ancient marble quarry where the 20-tonne blocks of the Portara and the Lions of Delos were cut, two 570 BC Archaic Kouros statues lie in situ:

• The Garden Kouros of Flerio: walk into the shaded paradise garden of figs, citrons and walnut trees at the bottom of the valley to stand beside a 5.5-metre-long white marble youth lying on his back under the leaves, abandoned 2,600 years ago when his right leg cracked.
• The Second Quarry Kouros: follow the stone path 300 metres up the hillside to see his 5-metre twin brother still resting on the rocky quarry slope.

3. The Colossal 10.7-Metre Kouros of Apollonas

Right above the quiet northern fishing village of Apollonas (35 km north of Chora via Koronos or the sweeping north-west coastal cliff road past the 17th-century fortress-monastery of PanagiaChryssopolitissa / Agia Tower), climb a 2-minute stone staircase off the road to stand before a colossal, 10.7-metre-long, 80-tonne bearded marble figure of the Wine God Dionysus still attached to the living grey-marble bedrock where sculptors left him in the 6th century BC.