Archaeological museum of Thera to host the exhibition ‘Kykladitisses’

The Thera Archaeological Museum is to be the next stop for the flagship exhibition “Kykladitisses (Cycladic Women): Untold Stories of Women in the Cyclades”, organised by the Museum of Cycladic Art and the Ministry of Culture via the Cyclades Islands Antiquities Ephorate, after the exhibition completes its current run in Athens on May 4. The exhibition will then be transferred to Santorini to inaugurate the recently renovated museum, opening on June 13, 2025.

The exhibition, co-organised with the Municipality of Thera, will open to the public on June 14 and will run until October 31, 2025, according to a culture ministry announcement. The exhibition is the first joint action of the Museum of Cycladic Art and the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Cyclades, in implementation of the Memorandum of Cooperation signed on May 17, 2024 by Culture Minister Lina Mendoni and the President and CEO of the Museum of Cycladic Art Sandra Marinopoulou, with the aim of studying, highlighting and promoting Cycladic culture in Greece and abroad.

The exhibition “Kykladitisses: Unknown Stories of Women of the Cyclades” describes history through the eyes of the women of the Cyclades islands, from antiquity until the 19th century, hosting 180 unique masterpieces from almost all the museums and archaeological collections of the islands Amorgos, Andros, Delos, Thera, Ios, Kea, Kythnos, Milos, Mykonos, Naxos, Paros, Serifos, Sikinos, Sifnos, Syros, Tinos and Folegandros. The exhibits date from early prehistory to the birth of the Greek state. It includes several unique works, most of which have never traveled outside the Cyclades or left the Museum of Cycladic Art, while some have never been presented to the public. In addition to the marble Cycladic figurines of the early Cycladic period of the Museum of Cycladic Art, the exhibition includes 135 exhibits from the collections of the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Cyclades, as well as exhibits from the Kanellopoulos Museum, the Epigraphic Museum of Athens, the Ephorate of Paleoanthropology and Speleology, important foundations and private collections.

Figurines and large-sized sculptures, vases, jewelry, coins, tombstones and inscriptions with legal texts, frescoes, mosaics, engravings, manuscripts and icons dating from prehistoric to post-Byzantine times, compose the mosaic of the exhibition. Of these exhibits, many of which could be exhibition objects in their own right, three works stand out due to their uniqueness and size: The colossal Kore from Thera (2.48 metres high), one of the few nearly intact archaic statues, the emblematic mural from Akrotiri, Santorini, depicting “Women in the Sanctuary”, a unique work of monumental dimensions (almost 4 m long), but also the Hellenistic Artemis Elaphebolos from Delos, which is being presented outside the island for the first time.

Source: pagenews.gr