Vathy Astypálaias: Déka chrónia éreunas (2011–2020) se éna diachronikó palímpsesto tou Aigaíou
He Astypálaia ston Chróno
Edited by Andreas G. Vlachopoulos
Hardback (No longer our product)
(December 2023)
ISBN: 9789603865735
Price: $25.00
On back order
| In ancient and Medieval Greek, as well as in the local dialect, Astypalaia has a rather unusual name for an Aegean island, compound and polysyllabic. Its two components (‘asty’ = city and ‘palaion’ = old) make it even stranger, because they allude to a remote history of the place, when the Greeks who named it Astypalaia (= ‘old city’) acknowledged a much earlier habitation, an ancient island ‘polis’. We may not have paid so much attention to the name of Astypalaia, had its etymology not been justified by its very history and prehistory. The ‘earliest asty’ may be latent in the archaeological topography of the island, but the Mesolithic community which, around 9000 BC, buried its deceased member, with complex ceremonial, in the cave on the rugged cliff at Vatses, gains an important place in the remote prehistory of the Aegean and the Mediterranean. From this vague but fascinating starting point of the human adventure, which no one knows how far back it goes in Astypalaia, the springboard of time somersaults us to the end of the fourth and the beginning of the third millennium BC, when both the Mesa Nisi (=‘Inner Island’) of the rocks and cedars, and the Exo Nisi (=‘Outer Island’) of the vales of barley and thyme were inhabited equally. The two very different ‘islands’, joined together by a strip of land just a few metres wide and with richly indented coastlines, create Astypalaia’s rare butterfly-shape. In this privileged place, Vathy stands out for its advantages. In this unique remezzo in the midst of the Aegean Sea, the rowboats and the skippers control seafaring, secure for the community what the island does not provide, and, perhaps, undertake overseas missions, which its geographical position and many safe havens favour. The fortified citadel of Vathy, tattooed with rock art representations of a metaphysical ‘alphabet of the stars’, and with important finds, such as the pot burials of newborn babies and the marble figurines, is being revealed dynamically over the past decade, through a carefully-planned inter-disciplinary research project, aim of which is to communicate the historical knowledge to the public, to make the monuments accessible and protected, and to keep the –still– unspoilt environment viable and sustainable. |
- Edited by Andreas G. Vlachopoulos
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