What Is Paros Known For?

Paros supplied the marble behind some of the most recognized sculptures in the ancient world, and that stone quite literally shaped how much of Greek art history looks today.

Paros is known first for Parian marble, quarried since as early as the 7th century BC at Marathi and prized for its exceptional clarity and fine grain, qualities that let light pass slightly beneath the surface and give sculptures carved from it a distinctive glow. Archaeologists estimate that somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of surviving ancient Aegean sculptures were carved from Parian marble, including the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and the Hermes of Praxiteles, and the same stone found its way into structures as significant as the Acropolis, the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, and the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.

The island is equally known for the sculptors it produced directly, including Scopas and Agoracritus, both of whom worked with the marble quarried from their own home island, and for the poet Archilochus, one of ancient Greece's earliest and most influential literary figures.

Recent excavations near Parikia have added a real, physical layer to that history, uncovering an ancient sculpture workshop dating to around the 3rd century BC, where archaeologists found unfinished marble statues, mostly of Aphrodite, along with tools and molds that confirm organized sculpture production took place directly on the island rather than only supplying raw stone elsewhere.

Paros's quarries fell into disuse after Roman times and stayed largely abandoned through Byzantine, Venetian, and Ottoman rule, only reopening briefly in the 19th century, and recent local efforts have worked to preserve the ancient site, connecting Paros's marble legacy to Naxos, Antiparos, and Milos, the island that gave the Venus de Milo its own name.