Kykladitisses:
Untold stories of women in the Cyclades

By focusing on women, as they emerge through the material testimonies of the Cycladic past, the exhibition aims to examine the roles of women and their positions in insular societies. This is achieved through revealing the smaller or larger ‘untold’ stories that they themselves tell us – either through their own words or through their material remains; but almost always through the filter of the view of men of their time. The exhibition thus brings to light the often unfamiliar roles of women over the years and demonstrates how these roles were influenced by their position of dependency. Deities and mothers, priestesses, courtesans, merchants, fighters, intellectuals, mourners, witches, immigrants – all star in the show.

The visitor will get to understand the Cycladic women both in public and in private life, in social, political, religious and family spheres. Within the twelve sections of the exhibition, their relationship with eroticism, death and mourning, their participation in religious events and Dionysian festivals, the violence they suffered and the restrictions imposed on them by the community, are all presented.

Statuettes and large-sized sculptures, vases, jewellery, coins, funerary stelae, inscriptions with legal texts, frescoes, mosaics, engravings, manuscripts and icons – ranging from prehistoric to post-Byzantine times – compose the exhibition. Of the items, many of which could be, and are, exhibition objects by themselves, three works stand out due to their uniqueness and size: the colossal Kore of Thera (2.48 m high), one of the few almost intact Archaic statues, now exhibited for the first time in Greece; the emblematic fresco from Akrotiri in Santorini presenting the ‘Women in the Sanctuary’, a unique work of monumental dimensions (almost 4 m long); and the Hellenistic statue of Artemis Elaphebolos from Delos, which will be exhibited for the first time outside the island.