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Modern Description: Herakleia is the largest of the Lesser Cyclades and is a momentary continuation above water of the chain of high mountains which runs from Naxos to Ios. There are two villages: Aghios Giorgios (the port) and Panaghiá (the ‘chora'). Half way between the two is Kastro, the abandoned site of settlement in antiquity. Aghios Giorgios is a deep sheltered port, backed with a tamarisk-shaded beach. Habitation climbs up to either side of a dry torrent-bed. The two principal churches are visible from the port—the patronal Aghios Giorgios in the centre, and the Taxiarchis at the south west end of the village. A column fragment, faintly inscribed with large, ancient lettering, stands beside its west door.
A 15-minute walk south brings you over a headland down to the beautiful sandy bay of Livadi. Dominating the bay from the south is the hill of Kastro, with the remains of habitation clearly visible on its ridge. This is an interesting site representing several layers of settlement from prehistoric to mediaeval times. Looking up at the north side of the hill from the shore at Livadi, a wall can be seen running across the summit. Its lowest course is constituted by the large irregular boulders of prehistoric fortifications. The principal Early Cycladic settlement on Herakleia is at the site of Aghios Mamas, inland to the south of here. Kastro may therefore have formed a subsidiary citadel, protecting the entrance from the sea. Today the top of the hill is an assemblage of collapsed stone houses, some with their well-built vaults still in place, and with cisterns and threshing floors visible. Habitation was only finally abandoned here in 1930. At the south end of the ridge where the buildings are best preserved, a quantity of large, cut, dark-coloured, rectangular blocks are included in the lower courses of masonry. These come from a 4th century BC, Hellenistic structure which stood here: the shapes of the blocks show that the building— probably a fortified tower—was not circular, but must have been rectangular in design, like the tower at Plaka in western Naxos. It is not evident where in the vicinity this darker stone was quarried. The area of foundations and shallow-cut cisterns stretches some way farther to the south.
Wikidata ID: Q1007550
Trismegistos Geo: 33243

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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