Κυκλαδες

Kikládes - Cyclades

photography — Santorini, Greece. Public Domain.

These are the islands, the world thinks of when hearing the name Greece. Small rocky islands with small white cubic rock houses and churches with blue-painted cupolas. They were named Cyclades in the Classical Antiquity, as they are located in a circle around the religious center Delos, after the Greek word kyklos (circle). The archipelago includes about 220 islands, the major ones are in alphabetical order Amorgos, Anafi, Andros, Antiparos, Delos, Ios, Kea, Kimolos, Kythnos, Milos, Mykonos, Naxos, Paros, Folegandros, Serifos, Sifnos, Sikinos, Syros, Tinos, and Thira or Santoríni.

There are numerous legends why those greek houses have white colour and blue cupolas. All of them are legends, most of those legends are unlikely. One of them, we would call it the nationalist legend, it that these are the two colours of the Greek flag. One of the better legends is about a disease. The government ordered to paint the houses white to fight the disease. In the 19th century, limestone was burned and then water added. The result was a white paint which was acidic and killed bacteria, it was a sort of disinfectant. In other words, the white paint actually helped to fight the disease. But in the end, we guess the people painted their houses white because they liked the colour.

There are caves on the islands, the northern islands are built of limestone and karstified. But although the white limestone is typical for the Cyclades, there are several famous volcanic islands. The most renowned is Santorini, an island shaped like a new moon, which is the rim of a huge caldera. Actually, most caves of the Cyclades are artificial and are located on this small remnant of an island. They have cave houses are called υπόσκαφα (yposkafa), which translates “dug into a rock”, and wine cellars called κάναβα (kanava or canava). Santorini exploded in 1628 BC, the island was destroyed, as well as the Minoan civilization, the first civilization of the Mediterranean, the so-called Golden Age. The most realistic interpretation of the Atlantis mythos is that the legendary Atlantis is Minos, and it was destroyed by the tsunami which was caused by the explosion of Santorini. Famous archaeologists believe that Atlantis was either Santorini or a nearby island, which was destroyed by the tsunami, the explosion generated.

There are numerous artificial caves dug into the soft volcanic tufa, but no natural volcanic caves. The explosive volcanism of these Aegean volcanoes is not appropriate for the formation of lava caves. Lava tubes are formed by calm lava flowing downhill for a long time. The volcanoes of the Cyclades tend to explode, like Santorini.