During the dawn of the Cycladic Bronze Age, a gleaming white monument rose up out of the Aegean Sea. A manmade network of terraces and buildings constructed out of more than 1,000 tons of imported white stone, the massive monument took up practically every inch of the Dhaskalio promontory that was once connected to the Greek island of Keros.

Thousands of years later, Keros is an uninhabited and protected archaeological site. Time has weathered the monument and rising sea levels threatens Dhaskalio. But thanks to a recent excavation, a team of international researchers are digging into the island's thriving but mysterious past.

"It must have been absolutely striking to approach that from the sea," says excavation co-director Michael