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Ikaria, also spelled Icaria (; ), is a Greece island in the Aegean Sea, 10 nautical miles (19 km) southwest of Samos. Administratively, Ikaria forms a separate municipality within the Ikaria regional unit, which is part of the North Aegean administrative region.
According to tradition, it derives its name from Icarus, the son of Daedalus in Greek mythology, who was believed to have fallen into the sea nearby and to have been buried on the island.Ovidius Naso Publius9780198144403 ISBN 9780198144403
The topography contrasts between verdant slopes and barren steep rocks. The island is mountainous for the most part. The entire island is crossed east-west by the Aitheras ( Αιθέρας) mountain range, whose highest summit stands at and splits the island between north and south. The north side tends to be greener and more fertile, predominantly hilly and increasingly mountainous towards the south, with large forests of Pinus halepensis and oak. The south tends to be rockier, drier and with harsher terrain, with steep cliffs towering several hundred meters above the sea. The central part of the island, called Mesaria by the locals (roughly the same area covered by Evdilos prefecture), is its most fertile area and the ancient centre of the island. To the west of lies the Raches region and its villages, the island's most popular region amongst visitors for its traditional settlements and cultural events.
Ikaria exhibits a typical Mediterranean climate (Köppen: Csa), with hot summers, wet winters and occasional accumulation of snow on the island's various peaks. Aside from domestic and domesticated species, most prevalently the free-ranging , there are a number of small wild animals to be found, such as , , , Scorpion and green toads. Due to Ikaria's mountainous nature, most of its population, both of its main towns and several of its larger villages are nestled on or near the coast. The principal town of the island, main port and seat of the municipality is Agios Kirykos. Evdilos follows in importance, the historic main city of the island (and a short distance from the ancient chief town of Oenoe) containing the island's secondary port, servicing the north side. Agios Kirykos and Evdilos are the only two ports serviced by passenger ferries, making them Ikaria's main transport links to the rest of Greece.
Other important settlements include the seaside villages of Armenistis and Karavostamo on the north side and Therma, Magganitis and Karkinagri on the south side. The most important interior settlement is Christos Rachon, seat of the Raches region, followed by Akamatra, Vrakades, Kampos and others.
The seas around Ikaria, and especially to its north, had a fearsome reputation among the ancients. Homer likened its changeability to a crowd stirred by demagogy: "the gathering was stirred like the long sea-waves of the Ikarian main, which the East Wind or the South Wind has raised, rushing upon them from the clouds of father Zeus" (Iliad II, 145), and Horace, too, in the opening of his Odes associates "the African winds as they fight the Ikarian waves" with shattered ships (Odes I.i.15–6). The island itself had two associative descriptive epithets: ‘dolichi' (elongated) and ‘ichtheoussa' (rich in fish).
In the later Fabulae ("stories") of Roman writer Gaius Julius Hyginus, the Greek versions of the myth associated with Melanippe (otherwise Arne) and her sons Boeotus and Aeolus by Poseidon are amended to relate the story of Theano (otherwise Autolyte), wife of Metapontus, a king of Ikaria. Metapontus demanded that she bear him children, or leave the kingdom. She presented the exposed twin sons of Melanippe by Neptune to her husband, as if they were her own. Later Theano bore him two sons of her own and, wishing to leave the kingdom to her own children, sent them to kill Melanippe's children while out hunting. In the fight that ensued, her two sons were killed, and she committed suicide upon hearing the news.Hyginus, Fabulae 186 Metapontus later married Melanippe and her two sons founded towns in Propontis called by their names — Boeotia and Aeolia.
In The Anabasis of Alexander, the 2nd century AD Greek historian Arrian recorded the historian Aristobulus as saying that Alexander the Great had ordered that Failaka Island in the Persian Gulf be named Icarus, after Ikaria itself.
The temple stood in good condition until the mid-19th century ,when the marble was pillaged by the local villagers from Kato Raches to procure building materials for their local church. This church was excavated by Greek archaeologist Leon Politis in 1939. During the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II, many of the artifacts unearthed by Politis disappeared, with local tales claiming that the occupiers looted them. According to local legend, marble artefacts from the temple still lie under the sand of the Nas beach where the temple stood.
According to local historians, the Ikarians built seven watchtowers along the coastlines based on their own designs. Once an unknown or enemy vessel appeared, the observers would at once light a fire at the top and head to a tank which was always filled with water. A wooden plug located at the base was pulled, and water would flow. The guards of the other watchtowers were alerted by the fire and repeated the process. In the inner side of each tower's tank are marks identical to the ones measuring volumes in flasks. Each one of these marks was labelled with a different message on it, such as "pirate attack" or "unknown ship approaching". Once the water level reached the mark signifying the appropriate message, the messengers would place the plug back on the tank and put out the fire, so that each of the other towers could decode the size and gravity of the incoming danger. The watchtowers on the island's heights, such as the one in cape Drakano, were part of an inter-island communication network since the time of the Delian League. Traditional Ikarian architecture also surfaces around this period. Each house is characterised a low height, a single room, a roof of stone slabs, and was distant from neighbouring ones. It had a single low door and the sea-facing side was protected with tall walls, while there was an opening on the roof (locally called the Anefantis). Because a chimney with smoke could betray the house's location, it was often sealed; fire smoke would pour through the roof slabs without being visible, while simultaneously clearing the wooden roof supports of insects. Rooms featured the bare necessities, such as a grinding stone and a cauldron. Traditionally, people would sleep on the floor and hide their belongings in the walls.
Men and women wore almost the same clothing: sewn woollen skirts for women, a type of fustanella for the men. Later on the vest came to be worn by men and women alike.
This frugal way of living contributed to the famed Ikarian longevity and the absence of distinct social classes. Each house was a self-sufficient entity, using the living space around it for the cultivation of all necessary things. Women contributed freely in work and social life. Villages were slowly created by descendants of an original family which gradually spread. Despite the sparse population, societal cohesion was high. There were the panigyria (traditional festivals, common across Greece, featuring dances, music and consumption of local products), team labour and elder councils who were in charge of taking important decisions. This unique way of life and architecture was preserved until the end of the 19th century, with many elements surviving until today, most famously the panigyria, which are still some of the largest of all the Aegean islands.
The Ottoman Turks imposed a very loose administration, not sending any officials to Ikaria for several centuries, although in later years they would appoint groups of locals in each village of the island to act as Kodjabashis in order to collect taxes for the empire. The best account available of the island during the early years of the Ottoman rule is from Joseph Georgirenes, bishop of Samos, who in 1677 described the island as having almost 1,000 hardy, long-lived inhabitants, who were the poorest people in the Aegean. Joseph Georgirenes, A Description of the Present State of Samos, Nikaria, Patmos, and Mount Athos (London 1677) pp 54–70; Georgirenes is the source for the summary of traditional culture that follows. Without a decent port - most having been destroyed by the islanders themselves for protection against piracy - Ikaria depended for its very limited trade with the outside world upon small craft that were drawn up on the beaches. Ikarian boat-makers had a good reputation for building boats from the island's fir forests, selling both the boats and lumber for coin and grain in nearby Chios. The inshore waters of the island, as told by Georgirenes, provided the best cockle shellfish in the entire archipelago. Over the centuries, Ikaria would also become renowned for its charcoal, which became known as Carbon Cariot ( Ikarian Charcoal). Ikaria in the 17th century was unusual in the archipelago in not producing any wine for export, the locals keeping barrels of the strong red wine for themselves. They also continued to store it in the way prevalent since the Bronze Age, in terracotta Pithos containers sunk to their rims in earth, thus protecting their supplies from both tax collectors and pirates. Flocks of goats and sheep, even those belonging to shepherds, ranged free and virtually untended in the rocky highlands, much like today. Cheese was made for consumption in every household.
Georgirenes records three small towns, none of which exceeded 100 houses ( Cachoria, Steli and Musara),Georgirenes' Cachoria, Steli, famous for its nut trees, and Musara, with its church containing relics of Saint Theoctistes of Lesbos; the Byzantine ruins remained of a larger town than any existing village (Georgirnes 1677:58). and numerous villages, where each house had a walled orchard and a garden plot. Unlike the closely built towns of Samos, the hardy inhabitants lived separately in fortified, unfurnished farmsteads.
Ikaria remained part of the Ottoman Empire until 17 July 1912, when the locals rose and expelled the Turkish garrison from the island. George N. Spanos (c. 1872–1912) of Evdilos, the sole Ikarian killed in the fighting, during a battle on 17 July 1912, is locally honoured as the hero of the uprising. His bust, depicting him defiantly, with bandoliers on his body and rifle in hand, may be seen at the memorial established in his honour at the site of his death, in the town of Chrysostomos.
The Free State of Ikaria (Ελευθέρα Πολιτεία Ικαρίας, Elefthéra Politía Ikarías) was declared on 18 July 1912. The neighboring islands of Fournoi Korseon were also incorporated in the Free State. Doctor Ioannis Malachias (Ιωάννης Μαλαχίας) was the first and only president of the Free State. After the outbreak of the First Balkan War in October 1912, Ikaria's sole "warship", the Cleopatra, was used to provide food and supplies to the islands of Samos and Chios, captured by the Greek Navy in the war's Aegean campaign.
Ikaria remained an independent country for five months, with its own government, armed forces, national flag, coat of arms, postage stamps, and national anthem. These five months were difficult for the island's economy, with food shortages and the risk of being annexed into the Italian Dodecanese. On 4 November 1912, after a delay due to the Balkan Wars, Ikaria officially became part of the Kingdom of Greece. The Ottoman Empire recognized Greece's annexation of Ikaria and the other Aegean islands in the Treaty of London (1913).
After the ravages of the war, nationalists and communists fought in the Greek Civil War (1946–49), and the Greek government used the island to exile about 13,000 communists. The island, due to its isolation and poverty, was already being used as a place of exile since the 4th of August regime under Ioannis Metaxas. To this date, the majority of the locals remain sympathetic to left parties and communism, with the island often referred to as the "Red Rock" (Κόκκινος Βράχος, Kokkinos Vrahos). The majority of votes in this election were for left-wing parties: Syriza (35.11%) and KKE (30.23%) (2026). 9789604512355, Sychroni Epochi. ISBN 9789604512355
Ikarian Greeks themselves are closely related to other Aegean island Greeks, such as Greeks from Samos, Chios, Fournoi Korseon, and Patmos, as well as Greeks from Anatolia.
Evdilos
Raches
Other exhibits include various clay and wooden objects used by housewives, beekeepers, and farmers, ecclesiastical relics from Profit Elias in Vrakades and the convent of Evagelistrias Mavrianou, books by Ikarian writers, Ikarian records and documents over 500 years old. Of note is the cutter, "lanari" in Greek, used for the processing of wool and goat hairs from which the modest local clothing was made, the "lisgos", a simple tool used for making ropes, an old digging tool, and many other tools belonging to the first inhabitants of the island.
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