AtΓ‘vyros

On the summit of Mount Atavyros, Rhodes’ highest peak at 1,216 metres, the ruins of a Byzantine fortified monastery stand above the remnants of a far older sanctuary. The site was originally a Pan-Rhodian temple of Zeus Atavirios, dating probably to the 5th and 4th centuries BC, with a sacred peribolos and altar later crowned by an early Christian basilica and a Byzantine chapel. By the 19th century, Ludwig Ross described blue marble blocks, some five feet long, piled three to four feet high, with a roofless chapel of St John amid the rubble. The later monastery took the form of a rectangular enceinte with two towers on the east and a double-tower gate to the north, though the flanking works survive only partially. Cisterns remain, and quantities of 5th or 6th century ceramics scatter the ground. During the Second World War the site was apparently re-fortified, possibly by Italians, with trenches and a wall; modern visitors have since damaged it by building stone pyramids from the ruins.