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Modern Description: On the hill just above (NW) of the village of Sykamino, faint trails lead uphill through fallen wire fences. Rooftiles and medieval potsherds but no trace of fortifications. A 13th-15th c. castle of Sykaminon is attested in medieval sources, controlled by the Knights of St. John and then the Acciaioli dukes of Athens. Its existence is forgotten by most in the village. The fortress, if indeed it is on the hill, overlooks the Asopos river at a crucial crossing point 3 km upstream from the medieval river port (modern Chalkoutsi). A pile of stones might tend to confirm the account given by a villager, that the castle was demolished in the 19th century and its stones harvested for building materials. If so, however, the castle was built with mud mortar, not cement. TT Coordinates are to faint foundations of a ruined medieval chapel that includes one ashlar block with 4th c. BCE staple clamps, perhaps from a bridge on the Asopos(?). The last owner of the castle was Nerozzo Pitti, who married Laodameia, an Acciaioli daughter. The family lost their world goods to the Turks in 1456 with the fall of Athens, apart from one castle near Thebes (possibly Palaiopanagia/Askra), and they petitioned to sell the ancestral house in Florence, the Pitti Palace, to finance dowries for the five daughters. A handsome church in the village
Wikidata ID: Q106366724
Trismegistos Geo: 59214

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(JBK)

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