IΔΡΥΜA ΜΕΙΖΟΝΟΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΣΜΟΥ Συγγραφή : Χατζηδάκης Παναγιώτης Μετάφραση : Χατζηδάκης Παναγιώτης (2/8/2005) Για παραπομπή : Χατζηδάκης Παναγιώτης , "Rineia", 2005, Εγκυκλοπαίδεια Μείζονος Ελληνισμού, Κωνσταντινούπολη URL:

Περίληψη : Γενικές Πληροφορίες Area: 13.904 km2

Coastline length: 43 km

Population: Uninhabited

Administrative structure: Region of , Prefecture of the , Municipality of

Archaeological sites and monuments: The whole island is an archaological site

Natural monuments: The island has been included in the European network "NATURA 2000" as a Special Protection Area (SPA)

Cultural clubs: Association of Friends of and Rineia

1. General information

Despite the fact that Rineia is a much bigger island (17 km2) it has been always overshadowed by the smaller (6.85 km2), but famous neighbouring Delos. Only a narrow channel, no more than 1 km wide, separates the two islands. In the intervening channel are two rocky islets, the Small Rematiaris to the north and the Great Rematiaris to the south, on which are preserved vestiges of a Hellenistic sanctuary and of an early Christian Basilica.

In 1154 AD, the Arab geographer al-Idrisi describes Delos as Ardilo, “a round islet, deserted, uninhabited, but with a port.”Delos and Rineia, whose name had been completely forgotten, were referred to collectively as Sdiles, Sdili or Sdilis and even today the Mykonians call the two islands Diles: Mikres Diles is Delos and Megales Diles is Rheneia. In the Mykonian Christmas carol, St Basil comes from “lower Diles”:

St Basil comes from Lower Diles Holding a basket full of limpets And another basket full of mushrooms. He ate the limpets, asks for buttermilk we offer him sweet wine and he jumps up and leaves.

2. History

Rineia was inhabited since the 5th milienium BC. In the historical scene the island appeared around 530 BC, when the tyrant of , who gained the upper hand in the Aegean owing to his strong naval force, “having prevailed with his navy, exerted his authority over the other islands, conquered Rineia and dedicated it to of Delos, attaching it to Delos by a chain.”( )

On the northwest of the island (Ambelonas) an ancient city was discovered that had been abandoned in the 5th century BC when part of the hill on which it was built broke away and tumbled into the sea. It is possible that at the period when Delos still retained its exclusively sacred character, this may have been the original city where people lived who were not directly involved in the operation of the Sanctuary. It seems that following this disaster, some people settled on Delos.

In the Agia Triada region, vestiges can still be seen of the Hellenistic city and the Sanctuary of Heracles. In the south of the island, on

Δημιουργήθηκε στις 5/10/2021 Σελίδα 1/3 IΔΡΥΜA ΜΕΙΖΟΝΟΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΣΜΟΥ Συγγραφή : Χατζηδάκης Παναγιώτης Μετάφραση : Χατζηδάκης Παναγιώτης (2/8/2005) Για παραπομπή : Χατζηδάκης Παναγιώτης , "Rineia", 2005, Εγκυκλοπαίδεια Μείζονος Ελληνισμού, Κωνσταντινούπολη URL: a headland looking over the area, there used to be a lighthouse, perhaps a copy in miniature of the famous lighthouse of Alexandria. The east coast opposite Delos is occupied by the ancient cemeteries.

During the winter of 426/5 BC Athenians decided to “purify”Delos, ostensibly for reasons of piety. They opened up all the graves on the island, even the most recent ones, and moved the bones and funerary offerings to Rineia, where everything was buried in a common pit. At the same time, they decided that no one could be born or die on Delos; and that women close to delivery and the seriously ill should be transferred to Rineia. This pit, the “purification pit”, was discovered and excavated in 1898-1900 by Dim. Stavropoullos, the first Ephor of Antiquities in Cyclades. The thousands of finds he discovered are exhibited in Mykonos Archaeological Museum.

“Island of Ilithyia and Pluto”was what Dimitrios Stavropoullos called Rineia, referring to the fact that Delians lived on this island during the first and last days of their life; here they were born and died, first greeting and last bidding farewell to the sun which for the Greeks was always the supreme good.

In the hundreds of grave stelae that have been found on Rineia and Delos, the grief of the dead person’s relatives is expressed with restraint and dignity. The dead person is represented in some everyday occupation or saying goodbye to family. Funeral epigrams are equally restrained, and usually limited to the name of the deceased, place of origin and a typical farewell. There are many grave stelae for men lost at sea in shipwrecks or naval battles. Many of these stelae were erected by relatives or friends of the dead people on cenotaphs, since the bodies of drowned people were only rarely recovered.

But Rineia was not a vast necropolis. On the island must have been many treatment centres, to which Delians with more serious illnesses or women ready to give birth would be brought, as it was forbidden for anyone to give birth or die on Delos. To the west was the city of the Rineians and significant temples, and farms were scattered all over the island. Its fertile valleys were covered with farms; herds of goats, sheep and cattle grazed on the hillsides, among the verdant vineyards and the golden seas of waving grain. This picture remains the same, so that one has the feeling that on Rineia time has stood still. Hospitable villagers - who are not considered as resident population - cultivate the “lots”rented from the Municipality of Mykonos in almost the same way that their ancestors cultivated in antiquity, still threshing with horses.

Βιβλιογραφία : Bruneau Ph., Ducat J., Guide de Délos, Paris 1983

Κουσαθανάς Π. (επιμ.), Όρσ’αλά μπάντα! Αναδρομικός περίπλους στην παλιά Μύκονο, Μύκονος 2002

Δικτυογραφία : Archaeological Museum of Mykonos http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/1/eh151.jsp?obj_id=3301 List of sites of Community importance http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2006/l_259/l_25920060921en00010104.pdf Δήλος-Μύκονος http://www.e-mykonos.gr/index.php?MODULE=bce/application/show&SiteID=5

Παραθέματα

Δημιουργήθηκε στις 5/10/2021 Σελίδα 2/3 IΔΡΥΜA ΜΕΙΖΟΝΟΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΣΜΟΥ Συγγραφή : Χατζηδάκης Παναγιώτης Μετάφραση : Χατζηδάκης Παναγιώτης (2/8/2005) Για παραπομπή : Χατζηδάκης Παναγιώτης , "Rineia", 2005, Εγκυκλοπαίδεια Μείζονος Ελληνισμού, Κωνσταντινούπολη URL:

The poet C. P. Cavafy arrives at Rineia

On Friday, 16 July 1901 at 6:30 p.m., C. P. Cavafy arrived at the lazaretto of Rineia on his first trip to . The poet, whose work was only minimally concerned with the description of nature, for which his contemporaries criticised him, was charmed by the beauty of the landscape and devoted a few lines in his personal diary to describe it: “We have reached Delos [Rineia]… At 5 a.m. the sea under the rising sun presented a beautiful appearance; and beauteous also looked the islands that studded the horizon … The sea’s colour and form are wonderful – intensely Greek … The island is pretty to look at. The bay most picturesque. But it appears that there are very few inhabitants at Delos, and almost no cultivation – whether owing to the natural bareness of the soil or to the carelessness of the population, I am not aware. Fair weather this morning. Thermometer at 780…”

Edition of Cavafy’s complete prose in Greek, including the diary of his first trip to Greece which he wrote in English. Ed. Giorgos F. Fexis, presentation and commentary by Giorgos Papoutsakis, Athens 1963, p. 260-262.

The shards of Rineia

“The crows are going to roost on Delos – which means that it’s already darkening… A long-lived winged creature is the crow, and throughout its long life, this same journey through day and night is what it has to remember. But just once a man appeared to disturb the deserted hollows of Delos, the peaceful nights: Dimitris Stavropoulos. Ephor of Antiquities of the Cyclades toward the end of the last century, he used to read Thucydides, the ancient, and saw it written that the Athenians proclaimed Delos to be sacred, and not only forbade burying or bearing mortals on this land, but that they also dug up the graves in the year 424, unearthed the bones with whatever else was left, and took them opposite, to Megales Diles, which was called Rineia. And now, this same job was done again by Dimitris Stavropoulos: to dig on Megales Diles, to disturb the solitary birds… Because there, he had got to find the “the purification pit”. What jewellery there was to be found, what vases, what vessels, in the jumble of that pit, plates and dishes and oil jars, oil lamps, whatever things could be found in the households of the rich and the poor, their ornaments, which the living person needed and wanted, they wanted to accompany them to the underworld. And all the small and large things were found in smithereens, a mountain of broken shard … but the learned person will never call anything a broken pot, but rather calls it a “shard”… And the other result of the “purification pit” discovered with the help of his great brain, was that the name of the Ephor, Dimitris Stavropoulos, has remained in history, the island acquired a great museum, Greece enriched its collections, humanity filled in some gaps in its knowledge of ancient civilisations and Georgis Polykandriotis, the tailor from Mykonos who stuck them all together, went blind after spending his whole life stooping over these vessels, gluing them together.”

Axioti M. Το σπίτι μου (My Home), Athens 1965

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