The new excavations on the islet of Keros, an uninhabited island with a highly important settlement in Aegean prehistory, will be funded by construction company Avax Group, it said in a statement on Tuesday.
"At a time when our focus on the future is intensifying, few sites offer us such a lively, almost cinematic bridge with the past as Keros. The island of the Small Cyclades group of islands, in the heart of the Aegean, comprises the most important prehistoric excavation of the last 50 years in the region, an archaeological site that has revealed the first attempts at social organization, rituals, and urban life in the third millennium BC," it said.
The Group  said that since 2006 to the present, international scientific teams have revealed on Keros and nearby Daskalio the oldest maritime temple in the world, one of the first organized communities in Europe with urban features, and the greatest metallurgy center in the prehistoric Aegean.
A new five-year round of research on Keros will begin this year, the largest ever, with the cooperation of the British School at Athens, the Cyprus Institute, the Cyclades Ephorate of Antiquities, and scientists from top universities, who will explore the way of life, shipping, production, climate adaptation and the first elements of social hierarchy in the Aegean, it said.
The first digital excavation in the Aegean
The new research cycle, Avax said, will be the first fully digital excavation in the Aegean, applying 3D record-keeping, virtual reality, and a interdisciplinary approach. Beyond actual excavations, the project will also include a documentary series (the first of which has already been broadcast by the National Geographic), digital publications, educational programs, and exhibitions that will travel in Greece and abroad.
In its statement, Avax said that the new excavation phase will boost the local economies of Naxos and the Small Cyclades with quality tourism and research activity; offer new information about the start of the Greek and European civilizations; preserve the Cyclades' intangible cultural heritage in one of the few intact sites of the Aegean; and it will give a new impetus to creating cultural infrastructure such as the Museum of Kofonissi island and the Museum of Cycladic Culture on Naxos, the latter of which is being set up.
Commenting on the Group's initiative, Avax Group President Christos Ioannou underlined that "for the next five years, the Group will cover in total all expenses for the participation of four Greek scientists per year, for four university students who will participate in the research program." The decision to help the project, he said, "clearly represents our philosophy, to invest not just in the present but also in the long-term future - in our cultural capital," while he added that the project fits in the Group's ESG strategy to respect cultural heritage and historical memory, to invest in social and educational activities, and to strengthen humans' relationship between their locale and its environment.