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Modern Description: At Katavatos (3.3 km), shortly beyond the junction for Mangana, a stone pathway heads north to the monastery church of Aghios Sostis, in a landscape of unforgiving rock above the shore (allow over an hour each way). There were ancient silver mines around and above this promontory, evidence of which can best be seen on its southeast side. In the galleries the striations of the pick and chisel can still be seen as well as the niches where lamps were lodged for illumination. The hollows, roughly excavated in the rocks in the area, are evidence of smelting on site. A few of the shafts are close to the level of the water; this has given rise to the garbled tradition related by Pausanias that ‘Apollo flooded the mines of Siphnos' in retribution when the Siphnian tribute to Delphi ceased to be paid as fully as before. Of the many mine installations all over the island, this is the only which has shafts near sea-level, and archaeological examination of them suggests that they were already exhausted by the time they were inundated. It would appear that the geological seam bearing silver traverses the island on a northeast/southwest line (about 220° off due north) from Aghios Sostis through to the Bay of Tsócha on the west coast: evidence of ancient mining activity can be found at various points along this line.

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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