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Modern Description: The most substantial ancient remains on Agathonisi are to be seen at the island's eastern end, an hour's walk from the village along the panoramic road that follows the plateau and then descends through open maquis to the abandoned village of Kathólikon. From here a track leads back west to the north coast (which can also be reached from below the island's heliport to the east of the village). A spit of land, projecting from the north coast, encloses a natural harbour and protects it from the north wind: here, at Kastráki, archaeological digs are currently revealing the presence of a sizeable Hellenistic and Roman port installation and fortified enceinte. From the junction just above Kathólikon, a clear track continues south beside a deep, sheltered inlet into the eastern promontory of the island, as far as the whitewashed chapel of Aghios Nikolaos clearly visible on the hillside. At this point a particularly fertile band of soil crosses the saddle of the promontory from southwest to northeast; on its slopes are the grand ruins of an early, vaulted structure referred to simply as the *‘Tholoi'—the ‘vaults' or ‘domes'— for want of any more specific sense of what these buildings actually are. Three contiguous chambers of considerable size, with another transverse chamber, with their vaults mostly whole and solid, stand in an enclosure made of blind and open stone arches. The stone—which was quarried from a spot still visible below the chapel of Aghios Nikolaos—is bound with mortar and raised, in some stretches, in alternating courses of square and flat stones, reminiscent of Early Byzantine constructional technique. The date and purpose of this complex still remain unresolved.
Wikidata ID: Q115730600

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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