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Modern Description: After 1800 m (8.3 km) a second left branch leads west into the Gourniá area. 250 m down this road is the church of Aghia Anastasia to the right-hand side amidst some trees; beside it is the massive base of a circular Hellenistic watch-tower. The curved limestone blocks from which it is made are meticulously cut and shaped, and their surface dressed by point and chisel. A reference in Herodotus (Hist. VII, 183), when he is telling of the capture by the Persians of two Greek guard ships in August 480 BC, mentions that “news of what had happened was flashed to the Greeks at Artemision by fire-signal from Skiathos”. The sight-lines of this tower are towards the mainland of Magnesia rather than towards the north of Euboea and it must have been built at least 150 years later, in the mid 4th century BC: but it is nonetheless a visible, surviving element from a whole network of communications points which had already existed on these islands for some time.

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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