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Modern Description: As the ferry boat enters, visible on the crown of the low headland to the west of the new ferry jetty (port side) are the remains of a Hellenistic watch-tower of the 4th century BC. (Once ashore this can be easily reached by a short climb up between the quay and the island's emergency heliport.) Of comparable size with the base of the tower on the acropolis at Lipsi, its remaining lowest courses are constructed in parallel runs of precisely interlocked polygonal blocks—a technique similar to that called ‘Lesbian' masonry. The tower here can only have provided protection for the ancient port and surveillance of the channel between Arkí and Maráthi, since it is not sufficiently prominent to have served in a signalling chain. There are traces of retaining walls to the north and of two lateral walls that close off an area between the tower and the steep drop at the coast, suggesting that the tower may have been part of a larger complex, modified and reused in Byzantine times as the rubble masonry in the area would suggest.

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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