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Modern Description: Pserimos offers a number of pleasant walks and untouched and unvisited bays of great beauty and of some historical interest. Few other islands can offer the visitor the sight of Byzantine marble fragments gleaming beneath the waters close to the shore where you swim. The tiny settlement of Pserimos, also referred to as Avláki, at the head of a narrow inlet behind a superb beach of gently sloping, fine sand, occupies the same area that its ancient predecessor must once have occupied—the mouth of a fertile triangle of land, ringed by arid hills which feed it with seasonal water. The most visible point of interest is the 19th century church of the Panaghia set back 30m from the shore at the east end of the bay. The interior of the church is unexceptional but for its carved, wooden throne, incorporating a striking and unusual swan's-neck motif. It also has some fine 19th century icons. The courtyard which encloses the church contains a selection of remarkable ancient and Early Christian spolia, suggesting that the site itself goes much farther back than the present church: opposite the west front is a large panel of carved marble, with cross-and-rosette motif, which was the side panel of the steps up to a raised ambo. There are other fragments, both ancient and Early Christian, stacked to one side, amongst them a fluted column, a pagan altar and a pilaster fragment in fine alabaster—probably a Roman alabaster from North Africa. In 1888 a (now lost) fragment of a 3rd century AD inscription was noted here by the distinguished Epigraphist, W.R. Paton, bearing the name of the island (‘… in gardens on Pserimos') and referring to administrative officials from Cos on which the island then presumably depended. Pserimos has never been thoroughly explored archaeologically, but the traces of four Early Christian churches have been identified. A dense and fertile olive grove extends behind the church, covering the presumed area of the ancient settlement. Fresh water is not far below the surface here.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pserimos
Wikidata ID: Q644254
Trismegistos Geo: 57965

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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