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Modern Description: Almost 2 km due west of Stení, the road passes a junction where a track leads (left) up to the Jesuit pilgrimage church of the Sacred Heart, and towards the dramatic summit of *[E]xoburgo above it. ‘Xoburgo' (sometimes transliterated ‘Exomburgo', or just ‘Xomburgo') simply means the ‘settlement' (burgo) ‘outside' (exo): this refers to the fact that the area outside of the castle and around the summit of the hill was densely inhabited during the Middle Ages. Today we only see the remains of the fortified castle on the peak which was the protection and nerve-centre of the community. Of the town itself, very little remains: just the two fine, vaulted cisterns (fed by a spring and still in use) at the point where the concrete track to the church joins the asphalt road: another water fountain lies just below and to the south of the road, about 50m back towards the east. The only other remnants are the massive ruins of a monumental gate just below the church. The huge dimensions of this once arched space – which was not without decorative elements as the columns on the ground bear witness – must have constituted an impressive entrance to the town and castle. The Venetian fortress keep is reached up a steep, stony path from the church. Though expanded in later centuries, the first construction here was probably made in the 13th century by the Ghisi family, who were the island's first Venetian overlords. The outer enceinte is beautifully constructed and still standing in part, in spite of the dismantling of the fortress in 1715 by the Turks. To the right you pass a cistern, still relatively well preserved. At the summit, two bastions dominate and control the final switchback of the ascent, through an outer and then an inner gate. Here the masonry is of finer workmanship.
From the Sacred Heart church a path below leads down to the north, between stone walls, to the delightful village of Koumáros (0.6 km) whose courtyards and streets without traffic become an animated open air salon of activity in the evenings. Also from the Sacred Heart church, but in the opposite direction, a path leads down (past the chapel of Aghia Eleni) towards Xinára, and skirts the south side of the Xoburgo hill. This brings you after 10–15 minutes to the small but interesting area of the remains of Ancient Tenos and its lower acropolis of the Geometric, Archaic and Classical periods. As you descend, you first come upon a row of foundations of 6th century BC buildings to the left of the path; then, just below, a section of massive, polygonal Archaic walling. This defensive enceinte, which defined the lower extent of the Archaic acropolis, continues to the right of the path towards the west and north, enclosing a large apron-shaped area and rising up steeply to engage with the face of the south precipice of the mountain above. At one point it cuts abruptly across an area which has recently been excavated; this has revealed some earlier (Geometric period) wall-foundations and a very precisely bordered rectangular hearth which lies partly under the Archaic walls. Further west are more walls describing a rectangular form outside of the enceinte: these probably represent a later re-use of Archaic material. The structure has been recently identified as a Thesmophoreion or Sanctuary of Demeter. Above this, and once again well within the enceinte, are more foundations with storage pithoi still in place. It is from this area that the magnificent decorated pithoi in the island's Archaeological Museum come.

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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