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Modern Description: There is a restless energy to Tinos – not just in the ebb and flow of pilgrims who come at all times of the day and the year to pay their respects to one of Greece's holiest icons, but in the more general sense of a creative activity both past and present on the island. Wherever one looks, the terracing of the hillsides reflects the work of centuries of dedicated human cultivation. Beautiful dovecotes dot every corner of the island's landscape, their intricate design arising from a spirit of architectural playfulness which goes well beyond the demands of mere necessity. The stone-working tradition on Tinos is a living connection with ancient practices. In Antiquity, the waters off Tinos were home to one of the most important cults of the divinities of the sea, centred on the Hellenistic sanctuary of Poseidon and Amphitrite, just north of Chora, where the yearly Poseidonia festivals were celebrated. Strabo says that multitudes would take part in these celebrations. It is just the same today during the major feasts of the Virgin when the pilgrimage church of the Evangelistria is thronged with celebrants from all over Greece.
The island was anciently called Ophiousa (‘abounding in snakes'); and the name Tenos may derive from the Phoenician word ‘tanoth' or ‘tenok', meaning a serpent. A celebrated temple was dedicated to Poseidon who was credited with sending storks to eradicate the snakes. The conical hill of Vryokastro to the south of the port of Tinos was an important centre in prehistoric times and flourished in the Middle Bronze Age; and a small tholos tomb in the north of the island is evidence of a later, Mycenaean presence on the island. Around 950 BC the island was settled by Ionians from Caria. The main settlement on Tinos in the 7th and 6th centuries BC then became the slopes of the granite outcrop of Xoburgo in the centre of the island, above which the Venetians were much later to build their principal fortress. In 480 BC the Tenians were forced to serve in the Persian fleet of Xerxes against Greece, but their trireme defected to the Greeks before the Battle of Salamis, providing crucial information about Persian intentions (Herodotus, VIII, 82 ff.). For this service the island's name was inscribed, along with the names of the others who participated in the Greek victory, on the bronze Serpentine Column of Delphi which is now in the Hippodrome in Istanbul. In the 4th century BC, the city was relocated from Xoburgo to the site of the present town of Tinos. At the same time the sanctuary of Poseidon and Amphitrite was founded nearby.
In the wake of the capture of Constantinople in the 4th Crusade in 1204, Tinos was assigned to the Latin Emperor by the Deed of Partition. The island was claimed by Marco Sanudo, nephew of the aged Doge Dandolo who had led the Crusade, and was subsequently given by him to Andrea and Geremia Ghisi to rule as vassals. In 1390 Tinos, together with Mykonos, was bequeathed to the state of Venice. In 1407 the fiefdom of Tinos was awarded by Venice to Giovanni Querini, lord of the island of Astypalaia (Stampalia), but after his fall from favour the island was ruled by a Rector appointed regularly by the Council of the Serene Republic. The island remained a Venetian territory right down to 1715, and was the longest held of all Venice's possessions in the Aegean. As a consequence it has the largest Roman Catholic population of all the Cyclades and still has its own Roman Catholic bishop, convents, schools and churches. After no less than eleven unsuccessful attempts, the Turks eventually captured the island in 1715, granting a number of privileges to the island under their rule. The raising of the flag of independence at Pyrgos in March 1821, however, provoked Turkish reprisals. In this highly charged atmosphere, a miraculous icon of the Virgin was unearthed in 1823 on Tinos, at a site revealed by an Orthodox nun who had had a vision of the Virgin Mary. The cult of the icon has since made Tinos a place of national pilgrimage, not only at the major feasts of the Annunciation (March 25th) and the Assumption (August 15th), but throughout the year. On the day of the Feast of the Assumption in 1940, a Greek cruiser, the Helle, was torpedoed by an Italian submarine in the port of Tinos on the eve of the outbreak of war between Greece and Italy. During the German occupation, there was heavy loss of life, especially in the north of the island. Over the last two centuries Tinos has suffered considerable emigration; but the population, estimated at as high as 25,000 in the mid 19th century, has now stabilized at a little over 8,000 today.
The construction of a new ring-road around the city has brought to light (just north of the Evangelistria Church) stretches of the walls of the 4th century BC town, and the base of a bastion. Where it passes to the east of the Evangelistria Church, the work has revealed an ancient cemetery and the foundations of an ancient round tower which would have had excellent views and sight lines to another tower (foundations only) on the hill of Kato Kastri to the west of the town.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinos
Wikidata ID: Q211285
Trismegistos Geo: 3639
Manto: 8195141

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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