The kouros was found at the site of the Archaic temple of Apollo, along with more than 20 other statues, sculpture fragments and inscriptions. The find was made by a farmer digging troughs for pig feeders.

This discovery is hugely important because It is the biggest find of antiquities in Greece since the 1960s, when a large cache of kore statues was unearthed on the Acropolis in AthensIt is the rarest find ever in Greece because of the superb quality and 500-600 year time span of the piecesIt rewrites the history, significance and archaeological potential of Kalymnos island.

All the statues were found buried in a ditch at the foot of a steep hillside, probably a drain for the temple site. Each artefact was broken into a few pieces and was lying face upwards.
 
Five to six hundred years separate the Roman-style figures from the Archaic kouros, but they were all obviously placed in the ground at the same time.
 
Sometimes statues were broken and buried to make space for new votive offerings at the temple. But archaeologists think that these statues may have been buried for safekeeping by local people after they had been partially smashed by early Christians.
 
From about 40 AD, Kalymnos was part of the Roman world but the island maintained its independence and the temple continued in use.

It was only later, in the name of Christianity, that marauding bands arrived to smash Greek temples and statues. Marble blocks and inscription tablets were used to build churches and monasteries but statues were often smashed and used as rubble infill.

The find is now the responsibility of the Greek Ministry of Culture, Rhodes Ephirate of Ancient Archaeology. No further excavations have yet been carried out close to the site of the find, due to land ownership issues and lack of funding.

The Temple of Apollo