Monuments

During the early Christian period, a new settlement was established in the region of New Kallikrateia. Based on the excavation findings, it extended from the eastern to the western coastal part of the current settlement and was inhabited from the 4th to the end of the 6th century AD (fig. 1).

Part of an oblong rectangular storage building was discovered in the south-eastern part of the current settlement, which was directly related to the port of the city (fig. 2). Some fragmentary residential remains have also been found nearby (walls, part of a brick floor, a small tank and a well).

Even more, substantial components of this establishment were discovered in the southwestern part of the modern settlement, on the hill overlooking the port. An array of two pairs of lena (wine presses) was revealed, of which only four vats (must collection receptacles) were preserved (fig. 3) in the form of an inverted cone, insulated with hydraulic mortar, as well as other fragmentary residential remains. Part of the semicircular conch of the bema of a basilica and the eastern part of its south aisle were also revealed (fig. 4). The discovery of certain marble architectural members (a pseudo-pilaster capital of the late Severan period (fig. 5), a part of an Ionic impost capital, etc.), fragments of marble revetments and stone mosaics are an indication of the sumptuous decoration of the basilica. 

At the western end of the settlement by the sea, a small public bath has been excavated, covering an area of 100 sqm (fig. 6). It is built on soft sandstone, commonly found in the region. Only a small part of the tepidarium (warm room) and the caldarium (hot room) with a heating furnace, which is accessible through a quadrilateral area, the praefurnium (boiler room), are preserved. The remaining compartments were destroyed, due to the rising sea level and the modern coastal road passing through. As far as its architecture is concerned, the compartments of this particular bath are in a row (Row type).

During the Byzantine period, the region was a metochi belonging to Xenophon Monastery, according to references in documents preserved in the Athonite monasteries. The metochi “Stomion” is first mentioned shortly before 1200. The remnants of the foundation of a surviving tower close to the cliff edge overlooking the port are regarded as parts of a tower of the metochi (fig. 7). The only existing evidence comes from a document of 1338, kept in Xenophontos Monastery, where it is referred to as “Paleopyrgos”. During the Ottoman rule, the metochi was renamed “Çali metochi” and remained the property of Xenophontos monastery until 1924 after the settlement of refugees from Kallikrateia of Eastern Thrace, who established the modern settlement.

Of the aforementioned antiquities, only the bathhouse, the conch of the basilica and the foundation of the tower are visible today. The rest are kept under the ground. 

Dimitris Bitzikopoulos