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Modern Description: ‘Elaphon nisos' means ‘island of deer'. A mediaeval Arabic manuscript also appears to refer to the island as ‘Ashab al baqar', which means the same. The deer are all now gone, together with the dense vegetation which once provided for and protected them. Elaphonisos today is thinly inhabited and only partially treed; but it lives on a small but vigorous fishing fleet – and on the fame of its few, very fine sandy beaches which draw people in the summer months from all over Greece. Slowly its population is rising, as holiday-makers fall prey to its enchantment and decide to stay and build a house: it remains to be seen whether this tendency can be kept within the limitations of the capacity and tranquillity of the island.
The island is only four hundred metres from the mainland of the southern Peloponnese, just west of Neapolis in the Gulf of Laconia. In antiquity it is mentioned by Strabo as a promontory called ‘Onou gnathos' or ‘ass's jaw', perhaps from the profile the island presents to the bay. After an earthquake, said to have occurred in 375 AD, it was severed from the mainland and separated in the process from an ancient settlement of considerable importance – the Bronze Age site at Pavlopetri, now on the promontory opposite and partly underwater between the present coast and the islet of Pavlopetri. In the vicinity of the embarkation point for the island at Pounta, towards the northwest, are the remains of ancient sandstone quarries and the base of an interesting pyramidal funerary monument, which was seen by Pausanias. It was also in these protected waters in the lea of the island on the 30th September 1827, three weeks before the Battle of Navarino (the last naval battle in maritime history to be fought exclusively with sailing ships), that Admiral (Sir Edward) Codrington met with the French and Russian naval high commands, to discuss a strategy that was in the end to give unstoppable momentum to the movement of Greek Independence.
At 4.5 km the road terminates at the church of the Panaghia, built over the site of an earlier Byzantine church. Approximately 200m to the west of the church, a Mycenaean cemetery with rock-cut tombs has been identified.
The road down the eastern seaboard, leaves Elaphonisos by the church of Aghios Ioannis; after 4 km it passes to the left (east) the western slope of Frango Hill, on which there are the vestiges of an ancient settlement. Some ancient materials have been re-used for the construction of a more recent (possibly mediaeval) habitation at the north end of the area. The road ends 300m beyond at Simos – one of the most beautiful beaches in the whole area – backed by junipers and small cedars, and looking across to the acropolis-like promontory of Cape Elena, with its delicate and picturesque isthmus.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elafonisos
Wikidata ID: Q96408

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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