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Skandia
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The Homeric coastal city of Kythera, referred to in more recent times as Paliopoli. Mentioned in the Homeric epics as the city where the famous helmet "Kynê" was given to Meriones, son of Molos, king of Crete. Founded before the 12th century BC. The etymology is uncertain—Hesychius says the word means a type of helmet, connecting to the helmet story; another theory connects it to Latin "scandere" (to board a ship); yet another suggests a pre-Hellenic toponym. Latest archaeological research places ancient Skandia at Paliopoli, covering the bay from modern Avlemonas to the stream mouth. The area has yielded finds from Minoan, Classical, Roman, and early Byzantine periods. The church of Saint Panteleimon (formerly Archangel Michael) dates to the 5th or late 4th century. At the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Paliopoli produced early grapes and fruits for the Athens market.
Condensed from Emmanuel Kalligeros's excellent Kytherian Geographical Placenames which is available here
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Kythera. Guide. 2nd century AD.
"Kythera lis opposite Boiai, but to the Plane-trees where the crossing to the island is shortest, that is to the cape called the Plane-trees from the cape on the mainland coast called the Donkey's Jaw, is a distance of 5 miles sailing. The people of Kythera have the port of Skandeia* on the coast, but the city of Kythera itself is about a mile and a quarter inland from Skandeia. The sanctuary of the Heavenly goddess is most sacred and the most ancient of all the sanctuaries of Aphrodite in Greece. The goddess is an armed wooden idol."**
*Skandia was at Kastri, in the bay of Avlemona on the south-east of the island, facing towards Crete (not marked on modern maps). A recent (1960's) British excavation of the much earlier Minoan colony on the Kastri promontory (discovered by Miss Sylvia Benton in 1932) has confirmed that classical Skandeia was roughly in this area, but the centre of the classical town has not been identified.
** The last trace of the island city and the sanctuary of Aphrodite has survived in the magnificent fourtenth-century church of Agios Kosmas, which has bits and pieces of the ruins of another sanctuary built into it. In July 1437 Cyriaco of Ancona drew the temple ruins in summa civitatis arce, and his drawing has survived.
* & ** - Peter Levi
Penguin Classics. Paperback. 1971, 1979.
Pausanias
Pausanias was a doctor from Greek Asia Minor who devoted about twenty years to travelling in mainland Greece during and after the reign of Hadrian, in the brief golden age of the Roman Empire (second century A.D.). It was during this time that he wrote a detailed account of every Greek city and sanctuary with historical introductions and a record of local customs and beliefs.
*Skandia was at Kastri, in the bay of Avlemona on the south-east of the island, facing towards Crete (not marked on modern maps). A recent (1960's) British excavation of the much earlier Minoan colony on the Kastri promontory (discovered by Miss Sylvia Benton in 1932) has confirmed that classical Skandeia was roughly in this area, but the centre of the classical town has not been identified.
** The last trace of the island city and the sanctuary of Aphrodite has survived in the magnificent fourtenth-century church of Agios Kosmas, which has bits and pieces of the ruins of another sanctuary built into it. In July 1437 Cyriaco of Ancona drew the temple ruins in summa civitatis arce, and his drawing has survived.
* & ** - Peter Levi
Penguin Classics. Paperback. 1971, 1979.
Pausanias
Pausanias was a doctor from Greek Asia Minor who devoted about twenty years to travelling in mainland Greece during and after the reign of Hadrian, in the brief golden age of the Roman Empire (second century A.D.). It was during this time that he wrote a detailed account of every Greek city and sanctuary with historical introductions and a record of local customs and beliefs.
