General Information
Ikaria is inhabited since 7000 BC when Neolithic pre-Greek people where istalled, that the Greeks called Pelasgians. Around 750 BC Greek colonization of Miletus inhabited Ikaria establishing facilities in the area now called Kambos, which they called “Oinoe” for it’s local wine. In the 6th century BC Ikaria and Samos joined the maritime empire Polikratis.
At that time, the temple to Artemis was built at “Nas”, at the northeast corner of the island. “Nas” was the holy place for the pre – Greek inhabitants of the Aegean Sea and an important port of the island in ancient Greek, the last station before the exploration of the dangerous seas around Ikaria. It was an appropriate place for sailors to make sacrifices to Artemis, which was the protector of the sailormen. The Temple maintained in good condition until the mid 19th century when it was plundered by the inhabitants of the village Christos Rachon, who took the marble in order to build the church in their village. In 1939 excavations were made by the Greek archaeologist Linos Politis. During the German and Italian occupation of Ikaria in the Second World War, many of the artefacts that were found by Politis were disappeared. According to local tradition there are still marble statues beneath the sand of the beach. The 14th century AD Ikaria was a piece of the Genoan empire in the Aegean. At some point this year the Ikarian people destroyed their ports to prevent the arrival of unwanted visitors. According to local historians Ikarian people, based on their own construction abilities, built seven observation towers along the coast. Once a hostile or unknown vessel appeared, observers lit a fire and immediately ran into a tank which was always filled with water. By pulling a wooden plug on the based of the water tank, the were leting an amount of water to flow . The guards of the other towers were warned by the fire to make the same moves at the same time. Within each tank at each castle were measuring lines with the utensils used in oz. Each of these calibration and had a different message on, attached: «pirates attack», «unknown vessel approach», etc. When the water level reached the right message, the «sender» put the plug in the tank and died the fire so everyone in the other towers could read the level and proximity of the danger. During this period Ikarian people were rarely built villages. Each house was remote from neighbors, had only one door and it was clogged in tall walls and had no windows to the sea. A chimney and it’s smoke would betray its existence, so they were keeping an empty room full of smoke. Tradition says that they all slept on the floor and hid their belongings through the cracks in the walls. Men and women wore almost the same clothes: woven lakes skirts for women, a kind of “Foustanelas” for men. This lifestyle lead to longevity.