Amartou

Beside the working farm of Moni Panagia Amartou, founded in 1452 on a fertile Rhodian plateau, stand the ruins of a late-medieval tower. The structure, roughly 10.82 by 9.98 metres with walls 1.5 metres thick, was likely built by the Knights Hospitallers during their rule of the island (1309-1522). A greyish-white marble escutcheon bearing the Order's coat of arms, now placed next to the church, supports this attribution. The tower may have served as a watchtower, a country estate for a knight, or a refuge for local archontes; from its position one can survey the Chalki Channel and Alimia Island. Its walls, of roughly worked stones including beach pebbles, retain consoles for box-machiculations but no battlements. A barrel-vaulted basement supported a stone first floor, while an upper wooden floor had a high south-facing entrance. Later monastery buildings quarried stone from the tower, and the site is now in ruins. The church remains accessible, though the tower itself is private.