On Day 3 in Mykonos, I lazed by the pool in the morning, and bused back to Chora in the afternoon, not doing a whole lot except walking and consuming gelato. In the later afternoon, I took a boat to Delos, considered by Greeks to be
a sacred island. Last census there were 14 inhabitants, on hand to maintain the ancient Delos site. Delos had a position as a holy sanctuary for a millennium before Olympian Greek mythology made it the birthplace of
Apollo and Artemis. Investigation of ancient stone huts found on the island indicate that Delos has been inhabited since the 3rd millennium B.C.
A number of "purifications" were executed by the city-state of Athens in an attempt to render the island fit for the proper worship of the gods. The first took place in the 6th century B.C., where
all graves within sight of the temple were dug up and the bodies moved to another nearby island. In the 5th century B.C., the entire island was purged of all dead bodies.
It was then ordered that no one should be allowed to either die or give birth on the island due to its sacred importance and to preserve its neutrality in commerce, since no one could then claim ownership through inheritance.
Not sure how the forbidden to die thing worked.
After the Persian Wars, the island became the natural meeting-ground for the Delian League, founded in 478 B.C., the congresses being held in the temple.
The League's common treasury was kept here as well until 454 B.C. when Pericles removed it to Athens. The Roman destruction of Corinth in 146 BC allowed Delos to at least partially assume
the former's role as the premier trading center of Greece, and from 167 B.C., the number of often luxurious homes, commercial interests and population greatly expanded.
However, Delos' commercial prosperity, construction activity, and population
waned significantly after the island was assaulted by the forces of Pontus (Cappadocia) in 88 and 69 B.C. Before the end of the 1st century B.C., trade routes had changed. Delos was replaced by Puteoli (Napoli)
as the chief focus of Italian trade, and as a cult-centre too it entered a sharp decline. Since there was no self-supporting community of its own, Delos rapidly declined and became uninhabited by the 3rd century A.D.
The French School of Athens have led the extensive excavations on Delos since 1872, which continue to this day.
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Above: The Princess Cruise ship in the bay, allowing hundreds of people to flock into Chora, and make a sometimes peaceful town quite crowded (the only such peaceful day was July 15).
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1 is a view of a windmill on the hill and the Manto Mavrogenous bust. A rich woman who spent her fortune financing and encouraging her support the Greek War of Independence
with money and guns to the revolution.
Born in Trieste, Italy, her family moved to the Greek island of Paros, the Tinos, but lived in Mykonos when the war broke out.
Spoiler alert ... the Greeks won the war and their independence, and she is a Greek heroine.
2 to 5 are views around the bay in Chora.
6 to 8 is a Flock of Seagulls, who ran, they ran so far away. And if you don't get that reference, you are not old enought, or at least weren't around in the 1980's.
9 to 11 shows the windmills viewed along the coast of Chora, a chapel near Panagia Paraportiani Church, and two popular bars by the sea.
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