Delos
Δήλος
- UNESCO World Heritage
Interesting facts
- Remains of stone huts show that the island was inhabited as early as the third millennium BC.
- When Athens cleared all graves from Delos, two tombs of the Hyperborean Maidens were spared because they were honoured with a hero cult.
- According to legend, an oracle told the Delians to double Apollo's cube-shaped altar to end a plague, giving 'doubling the cube' its name, the Delian problem.
- The geographer Strabo wrote that the slave market of Delos could handle ten thousand slaves in a single day.
- The island produced no food, fibre or timber of its own, so everything was imported, and cisterns and aqueducts husbanded its scarce water.
- The French School at Athens began excavating Delos in 1872, and its work there has continued ever since.
- After centuries of decline, Delos was finally abandoned around the 8th century AD.
Why it is worth it
Delos is a small, almost treeless island in the Cyclades — just 3.43 square kilometres — that is covered from shore to hilltop with the ruins of a whole ancient city. Greek myth made it the birthplace of the twins Apollo and Artemis, and for centuries it was one of the most sacred places of the Greek world. Its best-known image is the Terrace of the Lions: marble lions dedicated by the people of Naxos around 600 BC, of which seven remain from an original row of perhaps nine to twelve.
The sanctuary of Apollo grew into a dense cluster of temples, treasuries and porticoes. Among them are the Doric Temple of the Delians, the Oikos of the Naxians with its long hall and single row of Ionic columns, and the base of a colossal Naxian kouros. The island's sanctity shaped its history: a purification in 426 BC decreed that no one should be born or buried on Delos. In 454 BC the treasury of the Delian League, kept on the island, was moved to Athens. When Rome declared Delos a free port in 166 BC, it became a booming trading town and a centre of the slave trade, with merchant houses, agoras and sanctuaries of foreign gods such as the Temple of Isis. That prosperity ended with attacks in 88 and 69 BC during the Mithridatic Wars.
Today the island is almost uninhabited — 24 residents at the 2011 census — and belongs to the municipality of Mykonos. Excavations, among the most extensive in the Mediterranean, have uncovered a theatre rebuilt after 300 BC, the dry bed of the Sacred Lake, a sixth-century BC fountain house and Hellenistic houses with fine floor mosaics, including the House of Dionysus and the House of the Dolphins. A museum on the island keeps much of the sculpture found here. Mount Kynthos, at 112 metres, gives a view over the whole site. Delos was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1990.
Getting there
Delos has no airport or road connection; excursion boats run from the old port of Mykonos, a crossing of roughly half an hour. The nearest airport is Mykonos Island National Airport (JMK), about 9 km away across the strait on Mykonos.
Plan your visit
We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.
Nearby places
- Kato Mili Windmills, Mykonos 7.9 km · windmill
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Delos or Dilos, is a small Greek island near Mykonos, close to the centre of the Cyclades archipelago. Though only 3.43 km2 (1.32 sq mi) in area, it is one of the most important mythological, historical, and archaeological sites in Greece. The ongoing excavations in the island are among the most extensive in the Mediterranean, and many of the artefacts found are displayed at the Archaeological Museum of Delos and the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.
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