The "Keros Hoard" is an enigmatic assemblage of fragmentary marble figurines, marble and clay vessels and other artefacts which were illicitly excavated in the 1950's and 1960's from the islet Keros, between Naxos and Amorgos. Most of those artefacts were sneaked out of Greece but the Museum of Cycladic Art managed in 1990 and 1992 to purchase and repatriate 81 of them. The systematic archaeological excavations that were conducted in the area the years 1963, 1966 and 1967 revealed an exceptionally rich deposit of Early Cycladic artefacts, most of them fragmented. In fact, the way in which the objects are broken and the erosion on their fracture surfaces indicate that they were smashed deliberately in antiquity. On the basis of this evidence, it has been proposed that the site was a repository for objects of great symbolic value and that they were broken on purpose in the context of specific rituals.