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Modern Description: Around Kambia – The springs which rise beneath the mountains were often in antiquity the pretext for erecting small shrines to the Nymphs and other deities. These later became churches: then, close to them, more chapels and churches were built in their own right. The area of Kambia (4.5 km south of Stení via Káto Stení) is especially rich in both water and churches. In the densely wooded valley above the village there is a trout farm today. The rising water here was collected by an aqueduct in antiquity: at the southwest corner of the gorge, a deep, natural split in the rock face has been dressed and enlarged to form a water conduit (best seen from the road that descends the east side of the valley below Kambia). At Aghia Kyriakí (5 km below Kambia), by a waterfall beneath mature planes, the church is built into a cave: only the south and west sides are constructed, and the apse is embedded in the natural rock. An aghiasma, or pool of sacred water, is cut into the north side of the floor, behind which the rushing of an underground stream can be heard.
DARE: 36751

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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