---

Modern Description: 50m further east, right on the ridge, is the drakóspito – the finest of all drakospita, and one of the most extraordinary and unexpected sights in Greece. It camouflages itself so well against a background of the rock from which it is made, that it can be missed at first. Symmetrical, pleasingly proportioned, and precisely constructed in horizontal courses of blocks with often beautifully drafted borders, it could not be anything other than a Hellenistic construction. The posts and lintels of the doorway, and the adjacent blocks, are magnificent: and the long interior space is beautifully corbelled. There are windows (unusually) and niches in the double south wall: the aperture of the door faces 15° off due south. All around are pieces of stone with perforations or shapes that have been worked by hand.
If the building were simply a refuge for quarry-workers, it is hard to explain why it was built at the summit of the mountain – an area very difficult of access and considerably beyond the practical altitude for quarrying. No archaeological or constructional evidence suggests any cultic use on the site. So the most likely explanation is that the building served as the look-out post for a small garrison. For military surveillance, the views in all directions and over the commercially crucial straits between Euboea and Andros could not be better. The crucial question remaining is how the information relating to what was observed from this altitude was quickly and effectively communicated to the cities of Geraistos and Karystos below. Very frequently nothing at all can be seen from this point except the inside of a cloud.
Wikidata ID: Q105779705

Info: McGilchrist's Greek Islands

(From McGilchrist’s Greek Islands, © Nigel McGilchrist 2010, excerpted with his gracious permission. Click for the books)

---