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Modern Description: The unusual shoreline, below Aghios Giorgios, at Lefkós – a low, shelving, sandstone promontory with offshore islets – is of a conformation typically favoured by prehistoric and early settlers: Mycenaean rock-graves have been found inside the escarpment behind the long west-facing bay of Frangolimionas. The whole landscape is punctuated with small natural caves, and manmade tombs and niches: but the most curious antiquity here is a Roman or Hellenistic hypogeum, which appears to have functioned as a large, pillared water-cistern. (A sign indicated ‘Roman cistern' branches to the north after 1 km of descent from Aghios Giorgios towards Lefkós; after 800m, a track which becomes subsequently a footpath, leads a further 800m to the site in the middle of a scrub-covered plateau.)
The underground chamber is entered by rock-cut steps to the west into a roughly rectangular area roofed with large stone blocks, supported on pillars made from square-cut blocks of the same tuffaceous stone – each pillar surmounted by a rudimentary ‘capital' block. Seven excavated tunnels lead off from the main chamber (3 to north; 4 to east), whose purpose was to increase storage capacity substantially without the necessity of constructing a further roofed area. A small pedimented aedicule can be seen below the ceiling on the east side. Hydraulic plaster for waterproofing in the tunnels suggests the storage of water, as do the entry steps which provide easy access whatever the seasonal variation in the water level. There may originally have been a weak spring here, which is now dry. The overall design – though smaller and far less decorated – is not dissimilar to other civic water-sources, such as the Fountain of Peirene at Corinth.
Nearby (to the northwest) are several low, caves and rock overhangs which have been converted into troglodyte dwellings or sheep folds, by using ancient masonry taken from the buildings and dwellings which once must have covered this area.

Info: McGilchrist's Greek Islands

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

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