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Modern Description: A further 3.5 km north, on very southern edge of Gavrio, a road inland followed immediately again by a turning to the south, leads to one of the island's most important antiquities, the Tower of Aghios Petros. (The tower is visible from a bend in the road, and a track leads 200m across the hillside to it. Access is not particularly easy, however.) This is one of the best preserved, cylindrical, ancient Greek towers in the Aegean, standing to over 21m, and has a slightly tapering diameter of between 9 and 9.5m. It is constructed of large, individually fashioned, blocks of a warm, pinkish limestone. A massive spiral staircase, still partly in evidence, communicated between its four (or five) upper storeys, each of which had a large framed window looking south toward the sea. A vertical stone blind projects on the east side of one of the upper windows. Supports for the first wooden floor can be seen 3-3.5m above the top of the lower chamber. The interior is dressed in places with smaller, regular stones. The building can probably be dated to the 4th century BC.
Two features of this tower stand out. First, the impressive and finely corbelled dome at the base of the tower, which has all the appearance of a Mycenaean burial chamber, but which is constructed in a kind of masonry which is clearly of much later date. There is a perceptible change in stonework, most visible on the outside, between this lower area and the cylindrical tower above: the lunettes which pierce the chamber also appear possibly to have been cut later. The second peculiar feature lies in the three straight, vertical, shallow-cut, recessed bands which run the whole height of the outside of the tower from top to ground level. What these were for is not clear: possibly they were necessary for fixing the scaffolding during construction; less probably for holding a clay down-pipe, as has been suggested.
The surrounding area was not only vital to the agriculture of the island in ancient times, but ancient iron mines have also been located in the valley. The Aghios Petros tower probably played a part in the overseeing and protecting of these activities, and watching over the manual workforce which would have consisted mainly of slaves, prisoners and conscripts. The tower, though high, is not logically positioned for communications and look-out and it does not appear to have clear sight-lines to other towers in the area that we know of.
Trismegistos Geo: 33688
DARE: 46649

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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