In October 1841, when the French traveller J.A.C. Barton first set eyes on Kastro, he was enchanted by the unique picture the settlement made: in his words, in proud and aristocratic solitude it loomed between sea and sky. Most of the travellers who visited Siphnos, from the 15th to the 19th centuries, make similar observations about the settlement built on the ruins of the ancient city of Siphnos. They are impressed by the remains of the ancient buildings and by the large number of ancient marble objects that are built into the external walls of the houses, still faintly visible under the successive layers of lime white-wash: bodies of statues, funerary stelae, architectural members, inscriptions, even a lion statue. They seem to be even more impressed by the sarcophagi in the Seralia valley – often even commenting negatively on the more recent ‘pedestrian’ uses they are put to. Buchon characteristically notes that ‘in winter, when the rains give momentum to the waters of the torrent, one sees pieces of tombs and ancient sculptures drifting, which shows that there was once a rich city here.
Based on the information of Stephen of Byzantium that Siphnos had three cities, travellers identified the ruins at Kastro sometimes with ancient Apollonia and sometimes with ancient Siphnos, the city of Herodotus. This latter view is considered the most likely, as it is supported by the archaeological finds. More interesting still are the travellers’ remarks regarding the modern inhabitants of the settlement: when a group of Kastrians in discussion in the loggia of Kastro ask to learn news from the outside world, it gave G.M.A.F. Choiseul-Gouffier, on his visit to Siphnos at the end of the 19th century, the illusion of his being in ancient Greece. J.Th. Bent, arriving at the island a century later, observed that the way of pronouncing words in Siphnos must have a great affinity with ancient Greek. Most people associated the longevity of the inhabitants and the beauty of the women with the pleasant and healthy climate of the island. Today’s visitors have much the same reactions to those of the travellers. Kastro, built in a naturally fortified position and reinforced with a strong double wall, preserves, both in its name and often in its streets, the memories of its diverse and particularly interesting history.
The first systematic research at Kastro was started by the English archaeologists J.K. Brock and G. Mackworth Young, who excavated parts of the hill and the area of Seralia in the 1930s, revealing important information about the history of the Castle. However, many of the movable finds were lost in the chaos of World War II, depriving the island of an important part of its history. In 1938, some valuable objects were handed over to the National Archaeological Museum of Athens by the English excavators in the last years of their work on Siphnos, while the rest remained on the island and were kept in houses at Kastro. According to a report by the Ministry of Education, during the Occupation, the most valuable objects from the excavations were collected by the Italian commander of the island’s garrison for greater protection. Unfortunately, some had found their way onto antiquities markets before the end of the war.
Occupation of the site of Kastro is documented from at least the 9th century BC; by the Late Geometric period (second half of the 8th century BC) a significant settlement had already developed. From the Archaic Period (7th and 6th centuries BC) it was the capital of the island.
The exploitation of the gold and silver mines during the 6th and 5th centuries BC brought great wealth, making the Siphnians the richest of the islanders (Herodotus III, 57-58). This is demonstrated in the Asty (the town) by its impressive wall, the only one made of marble in the Cyclades, which protected the acropolis. To this a pronouncement of the Delphic Oracle (Herodotus) apparently referred, and the rich finds give an idea of the magnificence of the public buildings.
In a display of their wealth and in order to secure the favour of the god Apollo and the right of precedence at Delphi, the Siphnians employed a tenth of their shared income to erect around 525 BC in the Panhellenic sanctuary of Delphi a small building, the well-known ‘Treasury of the Siphnians’, the only all-marble monument of the sanctuary up to that time. However, worried about how long this great prosperity would last, which they displayed in a provocative manner bordering on ‘arrogance/hubris’, they consulted the Pythia, who gave the oracle ‘When in Siphnos the town hall is white and white is the agora, a shrewd man will need to beware of a wooden host and a red herald’ (Herodotus, translated by Leonidas Zenakos, 1992). They misinterpreted the oracle, however, not understanding first that it was referring to the walls and public buildings made entirely of marble (some of Parian), a material intended for sacred buildings, and then that the ‘wooden host’ and the ‘red herald’ referred to ships painted red with miltos (for war). Thus, they chose not to respond to the request of the Samians, in revolt against Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos (532-522 BC), for a loan of (10) talents; this caused the Samians to sail to Siphnos, plunder it and extract a much larger sum of money. The event was considered divine punishment for the Siphnians’ overbearing display of wealth and good fortune, which had bordered on hubris.
A typical example of the marble monumental construction in the city of Siphnos is, as mentioned, the wall of the Acropolis, parts of which were recently revealed standing to a height exceeding 4.5 m. (14 courses can be made out). Built of local marble, a large part was quarried on the hill of Kastro. Its particular characteristic is the protruding courses of large, narrow marble blocks, currently visible in the eastern and northwestern part of the wall. Historical factors, such as the evidence from the excavations of the English inside the Acropolis, as well as elements of the wall’s masonry style, can place the beginning of its construction at the end of the 6th century BC – around 510. It was the only example of a marble city-wall at that time in the Cyclades. If the dating is correct, then the construction of the wall should be linked to the extensive works that took place after the mid-6th century BC affecting the northwestern side of the hill, when the old temple was replaced by a marble one, and the sanctuary area was extended to the northwest.
The Pythian response in the advice requested by the Siphnians mentioning the white, marble-built public buildings of Siphnos, at a time when this material was used almost exclusively in the construction of sacred buildings, suggests the extent of the display of wealth on the part of the city. It is clear that the fame of the monuments of Siphnos spread well beyond the narrow island’s borders.
A faint impression of the imposing sculptural decoration of the ancient city, whose public buildings were adorned, according to Herodotus, with Parian works, can also be obtained from the few examples of Archaic sculptures found in Kastro. Thus there exist a marble head of a kouros or sphinx, the work of an insular, probably Parian, workshop, dating from the middle of the 6th century BC, and found in 1936 built into a house in Kastro, as well as a marble Herm stele, found in the Acropolis in 1895, and currently exhibited in the National Archaeological Museum. The latter is one of the earliest examples of a Herm. The piece is from an island, probably Parian, workshop, with some Attic influence; it bears traces of repair and dates to around 510 BC. The only one found outside Attica from this period at the end of the 6th century BC and the oldest in the Cyclades, the presence of this Attic-type sculpture on Siphnos testifies to the island’s relations with Athens at a time when the Peisistratids had begun to show an active interest in exerting influence in the Cycladic area. It would undoubtedly have attracted much attention. In the 6th century BC, Siphnos minted its own coinage (an uninscribed silver stater with the image of an eagle) to preserve and control its silver production.
The Museum
The building housing the Archaeological Museum is a traditional one and belongs to the medieval core of Kastro. It was donated by the Maridaki family and restored by the Ministry of Culture in the early 1980s and has been operating routinely since 1986. It is planned to expand it to take in the neighbouring and expropriated properties of the former Prokos and Rafeletos families and to re-exhibit its collections to better capture the timeless history of ancient Siphnos and Kastro.
The collections in the Museum are the following:
– Sculptures (tombstones, statues, architectural members, etc.) from the Archaic to the Roman period (6th century BC – 1st century BC)
– Clay objects, figurines and drinking and display vessels found in excavations at Kastro from the Geometric to the Hellenistic period (8th century BC – 2nd century BC)
– Metal objects and coins
The most important exhibits of the museum are the following:
– Marble head of a kouros or Sphinx. Mid-6th century BC
-Marble Ionic capital. 6th century BC
– Statue of Artemis from the Hellenistic period
– Marble funerary stele. Hellenistic times.
The museum occasionally hosts educational programs and conducts tours when selected objects (such as lamps and sealed amphora handles) are displayed in a dedicated showcase). With these go tours within Mesa Kastro and the Despotika areas where the pre-war excavation of the British archaeologists Brock and Young is located.
