---

Modern Description: The port of Karpathos, more commonly known as Pigádia, has been the island's capital since 1894. Stretching in an arc between two promontories – the smaller to the west marked by the tower of the Italian colonial administrative buildings, the larger to the east by two small churches and the cemetery – Pigádia occupies the area of the ancient settlement of Potidaion. Of the four ancient cities generally associated with the island – Potidaion, Brykous, Arkaseia and Saros – (though Strabo (Geog. X, 5.17) mentions another called ‘Nisyros', which cannot be identified with any certainty), this was the most important, especially in later Hellenistic and Roman times when it was called ‘Poseidion' according to Claudius Ptolemy, a 2nd century AD geographer. The eastern promontory functioned as its fortified acropolis, and appears to have been crowned by a temple to Athena Lindia, known from inscriptions, but of which no trace now remains. All that can be seen today of the acropolis are the remains of some retaining walls in polygonal masonry on the western slope roughly half-way between the cemetery-church of Aghios Nikolaos and the building on the summit of the hill, as well as a small portion of isodomic masonry from the fortified enceinte beside the cemetery itself. The cove immediately east of the cemetery is backed by a hill whose concavity has the perfect form for a small theatre; but this area still awaits exploration. In the Early Christian period, a basilica appears to have been built over what may have been the site of the temple of Athena; marble fragments from it lie in the playground near the Atlantis Hotel. Apart from this and what has been collected together outside the small museum and in the forecourt of the main Church of the Evangelistria, all other remains of an ancient presence are to be sought further out in the environs of the town – at Istia, Kouri and at Vathypotamos.
Wikidata ID: Q38282165
Trismegistos Geo: 57978

Info: McGilchrist's Greek Islands

(From McGilchrist’s Greek Islands, © Nigel McGilchrist 2010, excerpted with his gracious permission. Click for the books)

---