ANCIENT TENEA - Klenia - 2010

Ancient Tenea. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism reports the seizure of two kouroi recovered in restorable fragments from antiquities’ thieves in the village of Klenia near Chiliomodi. The statues are now held in the National Archaeological Museum. Kouros A is 1.82m high and kouros B 1.78m high. Both are of island marble and were probably made by the same craftsman. A date in the third quarter of the sixth century is proposed. Subsequent rescue excavation at the reported find-spot has so far revealed the right foot and part of the base of kouros A and the right foot of kouros B (the kouroi themselves had suffered extensive damage in the course of the illegal excavation). Nearby are two sarcophagi (on the basis of size, one for a male burial and the other, 1.6m long, for a woman) containing pottery and, in the case of the ‘female’ burial, iron dress pins. Among the pottery is a kylix of the third quarter of the sixth century BC (ca. 530−510). A total of 77 Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic tombs were found (44 limestone sarcophagi, 30 cist graves and two enchytrismoi), plus part of a road (identified as the kontoporia). The twin kouroi were placed over two sarcophagi in the most prominent part of the cemetery, a child burial in a sarcophagus made a decade previously having been moved slightly to the west to make way for them.
In August 2011 the kouroi were returned to Corinth Museum from the National Museum for conservation and display.