Alopronoia

On the eastern side of the port at Alopronoia on Sikinos stands a lonely, ruined tower, its surviving shell rising to roughly five metres. The archaeological record offers nothing more than a label: the Bulletin (issue 29) calls it a tower of the Frankokratia, which places its construction somewhere between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. In that era, Sikinos passed through the hands of assorted local lords under Venetian suzerainty, so the tower is conventionally described as Venetian, though its precise builder and purpose remain unknown. No chronicle records a siege, a family, or even a date of abandonment. What survives is a fragment of rough masonry, too modest for grand theories, yet it stands as a quiet reminder that even the least documented corners of the Cyclades once needed watching. The harbour below has long since changed its traffic, but the tower keeps its vigil, stubbornly anonymous.