Delos
Native name: Δήλος
General view of Delos
Delos (on the right) and Rineia in the Cyclades
Delos
Geography
Coordinates37°23′36″N 25°16′16″E / 37.39333°N 25.27111°E / 37.39333; 25.27111
ArchipelagoCyclades
Area3.43 km2 (1.32 sq mi)
Highest elevation112 m (367 ft)
Highest pointMt. Kynthos
Administration
Greece
RegionSouth Aegean
Regional unitMykonos
Demographics
Population24 (2011)
Pop. density6.8/km2 (17.6/sq mi)
UNESCO World Heritage Site
CriteriaCultural: ii, iii, iv, vi
Reference530
Inscription1990 (14th Session)

Delos or Dilos (/ˈdiːlɒs/; Greek: Δήλος [ˈðilos]; Attic Greek: Δῆλος Dêlos, Doric Greek: Δᾶλος Dâlos), 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 artifacts found are displayed at the Archaeological Museum of Delos and the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.

Delos had a position as a holy sanctuary for a millennium before Olympian Greek mythology made it the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. From its Sacred Harbour are visible the three conical mounds that have identified landscapes sacred to a goddess (presumably Athena). Another site, retaining its Pre-Greek name Mount Cynthus,[1] is crowned with a sanctuary of Zeus.

In 1990, UNESCO added Delos to the World Heritage List, citing its exceptional archaeological site which "conveys the image of a great cosmopolitan Mediterranean port", its influence on the development of Greek architecture, and its sacred importance throughout Ancient Greece.[2]

History

Ancient Greece

Investigation of ancient stone huts found on the island indicate that it has been inhabited since the third millennium BC. Thucydides claims that the original inhabitants were piratical Carians who were eventually expelled by King Minos of Crete.[3] By the writing of the Odyssey, the island was already famous as the birthplace of the twin gods Apollo and Artemis (although some confusion seems to exist of Artemis' birthplace being either Delos or the island of Ortygia).

Between 900 BC and 100 AD, Delos was a major cult centre, where the gods Dionysus and Leto, mother of the twin deities Apollo and Artemis, were revered. Eventually acquiring Panhellenic religious significance, Delos was initially a religious pilgrimage for the Ionians.

A number of "purifications" were performed by the city-state of Athens in an attempt to render the island fit for the proper worship of the gods. The first took place in the sixth century BC, directed by the tyrant Pisistratus, who ordered that all graves within sight of the temple be dug up and the bodies moved to another nearby island. In the fifth century BC, during the sixth year of the Peloponnesian War and under instruction from the Delphic Oracle, the entire island was purged of all dead bodies. A new decree was eventually issued, so that no one should be allowed to be buried or give birth on the island due to its sacred importance, and to preserve its neutrality in commerce since no one could then claim ownership through inheritance. Immediately after this purification, the first quinquennial festival of the Delian games were celebrated there.[4] Four years later, all inhabitants of the island were removed to Adramyttium in Asia as a further purification.[5]

After the Persian Wars, the island became the natural meeting ground for the Delian League, founded in 478 BC, the congresses being held in the temple (a separate quarter was reserved for foreigners and the sanctuaries of foreign deities). The league's common treasury was kept here as well until 454 BC, when Pericles removed it to Athens.[6]

During the Hellenistic period, a well-established Phoenician colony on the island had extensive trade relations.[7] Epigraphic evidence also suggests the presence of a Samaritan community on Delos during this period.[8] Two marble stelae dated on paleographic grounds to c. 250–175 BCE and c. 150–50 BCE, record benefactions by Cretan donors to a proseuche ("house of prayer"). In the inscriptions, the community identified itself as "Israelites on Delos who make offerings to hallowed Argarizein," a clear reference to Mount Gerizim, site of the Samaritan sanctuary.[8][9]

The island had no productive capacity for food, fiber, or timber, which were all imported. Limited water was exploited with an extensive cistern and aqueduct system, wells, and sanitary drains. Various regions operated agorae (markets).

Suda writes that the Greeks used the proverb "ᾌδεις ὥσπερ εἰς Δῆλον πλέων", meaning you sing as if sailing into Delos in reference to someone who is happy, light-hearted, and enjoying himself.[10]

Iamblichus writes that Delos Mysteries (similar to the Eleusinian Mysteries) were established.[11]

Semos of Delos (Σῆμος ὁ Δήλιος) wrote many works, including 8 books about the history of Delos. The Suda mistakenly lists him as being from Elis.[12]

Roman era

Strabo writes that in 166 BC, the Romans converted Delos into a free port, which was partially motivated by seeking to damage the trade of Rhodes, at the time the target of Roman hostility. In 167 or 166 BC, after the Roman victory in the Third Macedonian War, the Roman Republic ceded Delos to the Athenians, who expelled most of the original inhabitants.[13] Roman traders came to purchase tens of thousands of slaves captured by the Cilician pirates or captured in the wars following the disintegration of the Seleucid Empire. It became the center of the slave trade, with the largest slave market in the larger region being maintained here.

The Roman destruction of Corinth in 146 BC allowed Delos to at least partially assume Corinth's role as the premier trading center of Greece, but Delos' commercial prosperity, construction activity, and population waned significantly after the island was assaulted by the forces of Mithridates VI of Pontus in 88 and 69 BC, during the Mithridatic Wars with Rome.[14] Before the end of the first century BC, trade routes had changed; Delos was replaced by Puteoli as the chief focus of Italian trade with the east, and as a cult centre, too, it entered a sharp decline.

Despite its decline, Delos maintained some population in the early Roman Imperial period. Pausanias (8,33,2), writing in the second century AD, states that Delos was uninhabited apart from a few custodians of the sanctuaries. Evidence has been found of Roman baths, coins, an aqueduct, residential and elite houses, multiple churches, basilicas, and a monastery all from the first to sixth centuries AD, which, however, does not suggest that the island was continuously inhabited in the period.[15][16] The pottery found indicates that produce, such as wine and oil, continued to be imported from regional centres. Also, a number of wine presses were found amidst the ruins of the ancient city that date to this period, suggesting that the population at this time was engaged in considerable viticultural endeavour.[17]

Delos was eventually abandoned around the eighth century AD.[18]

Landmarks

Current population

The 2001 Greek census reported a population of 14 inhabitants on the island. The island is administratively a part of the municipality of Mýkonos.

According to more recent numbers, in 2011 the island counted 24 inhabitants.

See also

References

  1. The combination -nth- is a marker for Pre-Greek words: Corinth, menthos, labyrinth, etc. A name Artemis and even Diana retained was Cynthia.
  2. "Delos". UNESCO World Heritage Convention. United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization.
  3. Thucydides, I,8.
  4. Thucydides, III,104.
  5. Thucydides, V,1.
  6. Thucydides, I,96.
  7. Boussac, Marie-Françoise (1982). "À propos de quelques sceaux déliens". Bulletin de correspondance hellénique (in French). 106 (1): 445–446. doi:10.3406/bch.1982.1923. ISSN 0007-4217. For discussion of inscriptions of two Phoenician groups in Delos—from Ashkelon and Yavneh—see Guy Darshan and Lidar Sapir-Hen, “Cultic Perceptions of Pigs and Goats in the Hellenistic Societies of the Southern Coastal Levant: Textual and Material Evidence,” Tel Aviv 52, no. 2 (2025): 256–273, https://doi.org/10.1080/03344355.2025.2546277
  8. Pummer, Reinhard (1999). Fine, Steven (ed.). "Samaritan Synagogues and Jewish Synagogues: Similarities and Differences". Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue: Cultural Interaction During the Greco-Roman Period. London, New York: Routledge: 120–121. ISBN 978-0415518895.
  9. Angel, Joseph L. (2022), ""Kinsmen" or an "Alien Race?": Jews and Samaritans from the Hasmoneans to the Mishnah", The Samaritans, Brill, pp. 57, 59, doi:10.1163/9789004466913_006, ISBN 978-90-04-46691-3{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
  10. Suda, alpha, 455
  11. Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras, § 28.151
  12. Suda, Sigma, 327
  13. Tang, Birgit (2005), Delos, Carthage, Ampurias: the Housing of Three Mediterranean Trading Centres, Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider (Accademia di Danimarca), p. 14, ISBN 8882653056.
  14. Tang, Birgit (2005), Delos, Carthage, Ampurias: the Housing of Three Mediterranean Trading Centres, Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider (Accademia di Danimarca), pp. 14, 32, ISBN 8882653056.
  15. DODD, EMLYN K. (2020). ROMAN AND LATE ANTIQUE WINE PRODUCTION IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN : a comparative ... archaeological study at antiochia ad cragum. [Place of publication not identified]: ARCHAEOPRESS. ISBN 978-1-78969-403-1. OCLC 1139263254.
  16. Le Quéré, Enora (2015). Les Cyclades sous l'Empire romain : histoire d'une renaissance. Impr. Université Rennes 2). Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. ISBN 978-2-7535-4045-3. OCLC 919408437.
  17. DODD, EMLYN K. (2020). ROMAN AND LATE ANTIQUE WINE PRODUCTION IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN : a comparative ... archaeological study at antiochia ad cragum. [Place of publication not identified]: ARCHAEOPRESS. ISBN 978-1-78969-403-1. OCLC 1139263254.
  18. DODD, EMLYN K. (2020). ROMAN AND LATE ANTIQUE WINE PRODUCTION IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN : a comparative ... archaeological study at antiochia ad cragum. [Place of publication not identified]: ARCHAEOPRESS. ISBN 978-1-78969-403-1. OCLC 1139263254.
  19. "Sacred Lake | Greece Attractions". Lonely Planet.
  20. Trümper, Monika (2008). Die ‚Agora des Italiens’ in Delos. Baugeschichte, Architektur, Ausstattung und Funktion einer späthellenistischen Porticus-Anlage [The ‘Agora of the Italians’ in Delos. Building history, architecture, decoration and function of a late Hellenistic porticus complex]. Rahden: Leidorf, ISBN 978-3-89646-376-0 (English summary in a review).
  21. British Museum Collection
  22. Gruben G., Griechische Tempel und Heiligtümer, München, 2001
  23. Gazette numismatique suisse. 1992. p. 124.
  24. Carter, Jane B. (1997). "Thiasos and Marzeaḥ". In Langdon, Susan (ed.). New Light on a Dark Age. University of Missouri Press. p. 99. ISBN 9780826210999.
  25. Hephaistos. 2006. p. 129.
  26. Delos

Further reading and viewing

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