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Modern Description: South of Kalamotí, a fertile agricultural plain extends to the coast at Kómi; this is probably the oldest consistently cultivated area of Chios, which provided food for the island's earliest settlements around the protected harbour of Emporeió at its southern extremity. The harbour is marked by a hill to the west – ideal as an acropolis – and by another, higher mountain (today's Prophitis Elías hill) to its north and east; with a source of fresh-water in addition, directly behind the bay, the site was an obvious choice for settlement.
The importance of Ancient Emporeios derives from the antiquity, variety and continuity of settlement here; the excavations have also provided interesting information about early ancient dwellings. The various points of archaeological interest are spread over the whole area.
Excavations at the neck of the west promontory have revealed settlement remains beginning as early as the 5th millennium BC: no less than ten subsequent phases have been distinguished by archaeologists, of which Phase III (late 3rd millennium BC) is the first to have had a strong defensive wall. Obsidian debitage is evidence that there were trading links with the Cyclades from early on. Mycenaean finds show that settlement continued until the end of the Bronze Age. When the island was re-colonised by Ionians from Histiaia on Euboea in the 8th century BC, the site they chose for settlement was not the previous one, but the slopes of the hill to the east and north instead which was to function ultimately as their acropolis. Here they constructed the sanctuary and temple of their patron goddess, Athena; while below, by the harbour, a Sanctuary to Artemis was established. Between the two, stretched the inhabited town with its simple residences. Thucydides (VIII.24) appears to refer to the settlement as Leukonion. The area was populated in Roman times – when a fortress was erected on the summit of the promontory to the west of the harbour – and in Early Christian times, when the temple of Artemis was dismantled and used as a quarry to build an Early Christian Basilica, whose Baptismal font (still visible today) was beside the same water source which had supplied the very earliest settlements here, nearly five thousand years before.
The road from Kómi to Emporeió passes below the entrance to the Archaeological Site on the south slopes of the hill of Prophitis Elias (Open daily, 8.30 – 7 in summer; 9 – one hour before sunset, in winter). First excavated and published by John Boardman and the British School of Archaeology between 1951-4, the hillside today is laid out as a manicured archaeological park with concrete walkways and suggested itineraries. The visitor encounters principally four types of architecture on the site: temple, megaron, simple dwelling, and storage-house.
The focus of the ancient town was the Temple of Athena, which sits at the top of the site, within a walled acropolis encompassing the summit and the southern shoulder of the hill of Prophitis Elias.
In the earliest phase (8th century BC) there was only a rectangular altar (‘Altar A') here and a peribolos defining the sacred area. The first temple was built in the 6th century BC. It would have been a flat-roofed, rectangular building with a porch: it enclosed and covered the 8th century BC altar – the sanctuary's most sacred spot – and housed the cult image. A new external altar (‘Altar B') was now built for communal cult: this is the long rectangular structure placed, a short distance away, parallel to the north side of the temple – an unusual position, since altars were nearly always to be found to the east of the front of a temple. Immediately following its destruction in the early 4th century BC, the temple was rebuilt in the form visible today, this time with a pitched roof instead of the flat roof: a new altar (‘Altar C')was created, in front of the east entrance, but at a curiously skewed angle to the temple building.
The masonry of the temple visible today has the characteristic precision of Hellenistic (4th century BC) construction. Its magnificently panoramic position is characteristic of Greek temple-sites of all periods. Inside the confines of the temple, the stone base for the cult statue can be seen in the southwest corner and the remains of the earliest, 8th century BC altar are next to it, just to the north. From in front of the temple, what remains of the 800m circuit of walls of the acropolis can be seen flanking the ridge to east and west as they rise up to the summit. Almost contiguous with the western wall, and just north of the temple, is the megaron of the 8th century BC – a long rectangular hall, preceded by a porch supported on wooden columns whose stone bases can still be seen: this was the official residence of the ruler and would also have served as a council chamber for the elders. The lowest courses of its perimeter-wall are of massive blocks settled amongst pieces of the bedrock; on top of these, the walls are made of smaller stone pieces. They would have been finished with plastered mud-brick at the top, and covered with a flat roof, supported on a line of three central wooden columns. On the slopes of the hill below the walls, a number of houses of great simplicity have been uncovered: mostly single-chambered dwellings with a stone bench along the walls for sleeping, sometimes a semi-interred storage area and a single threshold giving on to an external courtyard, often shared by more than one such house. In the southwest corner, one building distinguishes itself by its unusual circular form (c. 5.2m in diameter) and by the presence of a storage jar beside the door: this may represent a communal storehouse. The humble simplicity of every construction here is striking.
A short distance (40-50m) up the road that rises to the west of the harbour, a signed track leads (right) into a field below some modern houses where there are the remains of a late 6th century AD Palaeochristian basilica and baptismal font. The cruciform font, still with its marble revetment of the steps leading down into the pool, is protected by a modern, circular stone structure. To the east of this, and now much overgrown, are traces of the basilica to which the baptistery was adjoined; a deep apse with mosaic pavement can be distinguished. The area is full of finely-worked masonry and architectural decorations taken from ancient buildings by the port and incorporated randomly in the foundations and walls of the basilica. The road continues up over the hill to the southwest of the harbour and drops down almost immediately to the ‘Black Beach' of Mávra Vólia Bay where, between the sea and ochre-coloured cliffs behind, an extraordinary volcanic strand of evenly sised, black pebbles stretches for a good hundred metres. A different variety of colours, no less unusual, are to be seen at the Bay of Phokí, 300m by path to the south along the shore.
Wikidata ID: Q38281346

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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