Chamkos Mansion

The Chamkos Mansion, or Tower of Hamko, stands in the upper part of Konitsa as a three-storey fortified koulia, a stone tower house of distinctly defensive character. Its rectangular plan is compact, measuring 7.30 by 5.00 metres, and it rises to a height of 11 metres. The name recalls Hamko, the mother of Ali Pasha, the notorious Ottoman ruler of Ioannina from 1788 to 1822, though the tower actually belonged to her father, the bey of Konitsa. A curious detail is the carved date of 1843 on one of its stones, which postdates Hamko's death in 1792, leaving the exact circumstances of its construction somewhat ambiguous. The building survives in good condition, a solid relic of Ottoman-era local power in the region.