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Modern Description: Extending to the south of this area is a long low promontory which forms the northern shore of the narrow entrance into the Bay of Vathy: the channel is 120 metres across at its narrowest point and less than 3 m deep. In antiquity the entrance was marked at its eastern end by what is generally designated as a Hellenistic tower. (Access is not easy since there is no clear path. Follow the promontory's shore-line round from Mesa Vathy to the east as far as possible and cut up to the ruins on the low plateau just before its eastern extremity.) The remains are interesting and permit more than one interpretation. Clearly visible are: the ruins of a circular mediaeval tower in stone and mortar, which has been constructed over a substantial, rectangular substructure of Hellenistic masonry: a rectangular podium, c. 12m x 20m in ashlar masonry, oriented on an east-west axis, with terracing to the south side; on the east side, steps and terraces descend to a cut and constructed landing point on the tip of the promontory. On this eastern side there is a considerable scatter of pot-sherds. It seems that a small, probably garrisoned, community was settled here in later antiquity, with the fertile valley supplying its agricultural needs. Of a quite different epoch, however, are the two well-preserved stretches of what seems to be an enceinte of walls on the north side of the promontory at its eastern end. The type of masonry would indicate that they may have belonged to a prehistoric settlement on the site. Whatever was here was clearly more than a simple watch-tower, and certainly goes back far further in time than the Hellenistic period.

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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