Modern Description:
At the eastern extremity of the island, a conical hill (356m) rises solitarily, offering splendid views towards the mainland, to Crete, and into the rising sun. Today the hill is crowned by the two whitewashed churches of the Panaghia Myrtiótissa and of Aghios Giorgios sto Vouno; but on this commanding site in the 2nd millennium BC there was a Minoan mountain-top sanctuary. (Access by 3 km of unpaved road, leading southeast from the asphalt road at the summit above Diakofti. Keys for the churches with the pappás (priest) of Palaiopolis.) The space at the top of the hill has a natural east-west orientation: its Minoan site was uncovered in 1992 right in front of the churches and stretching a few metres to the south onto the slope overlooking Avlémonas. The numerous finds indicated that the site was an important sanctuary, used continuously through from the Minoan Bronze Age to Classical and Byzantine times. A considerable quantity of small Minoan votive idols with raised hands, made of bronze or clay were discovered – notably more in bronze than in clay. These are now in the Archaeological Museum of Piraeus. This was the first such sanctuary to be found outside of Crete, and the new light that it sheds on early Minoan trade and colonisation makes the work which was done here a very significant piece of archaeology. The dig has been covered over once again, and there is little of it to see now; but the church of Aghios Giorgios (the more easterly of the two), which contains some rare and curious mosaics in its floor, provides great interest. The mosaics are not extensive, but they are clearly visible - particularly when wet with water. They are executed in four colours of stone: one scene is of a huntsman, in an oriental hat and elaborate, red jacket, with a leopard and other birds and animals, which are close to him but not clearly related in any narrative way; on the south side is a small roundel-shaped fragment with a booted and dressed figure, with a partridge and some different coloured flowers, that have the appearance of bunches of grapes, beside him. The mosaic, behind the templon screen, picturing a dove enclosed within an abstract meander design, has a different style – much simpler and executed in only three colours, with a lower density of tesserae per area. The apsidal shape of its lay-out would suggest that it were contemporary with the construction of a church here, though not necessarily the one standing today; it may also be of a different (possibly later) date from the other mosaics. Both the costume and style of the hunting mosaics have suggested a generally accepted date of the 7th century AD; but an earlier date (even late 5th century) cannot be excluded. The mosaics raise many interesting problems: not least how to explain why such a remote site should have been so lavishly and unusually decorated in a period in which Kythera was a distant and poor outpost of civilization. The subject matter is also perplexing: Christian interpretations can be given to its program, but the scene with the hunter seems particularly secular. This may simply show how slowly new imagery evolved, and how the old pagan visual motifs were still alive and well, although with a new significance, in the early Christian era. But it is not implausible that the mosaics belonged to a pre-Christian building on this site – possibly even a Late-Roman patrician villa – which yet to be fully explored.
The existing 13th century church has a stone and plaster templon screen bearing the date 1882. The murals on the north and south walls are also 19th century, though breaches in the plaster reveal earlier layers beneath. The adjacent church of the Panaghia Myrtiotissa (to the west) is in effect two churches: a square church of the Panaghia, surmounted by a shallow cupola of concentrically corbelled, rough-cut stone; and the later addition of the church of Aghios Nikolaos to its west side. Although the Panaghia is the oldest construction extant on the hilltop, and is of the 10th century or earlier, all the churches here are probably built over the foundations of earlier ones, which in turn cover the pagan structures beneath. As if to bring the whole ensemble into modernity, the double church of Aghios Nikolaos/Panaghia Myrtiotissa has, in its otherwise bare interior, a pleasingly naïf-style iconostasis, dated 4th December (Saint Nicholas's day) 1908.
Trismegistos Geo: 3356DARE: 46293
Info: McGilchrist's Greek Islands 
(From McGilchrist’s Greek Islands, © Nigel McGilchrist 2010, excerpted with his gracious permission. Click for the books)
