Dikili-Tash

The Byzantine tower at Dikili-Tash stands ruined on a low hill at the southeastern edge of Krinides, north of Kavala, within a far older archaeological site. The hill itself is a prehistoric mound, the oldest Neolithic settlement in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, inhabited from roughly 6400 to 4000 BC and again in the Bronze Age, with scattered later finds. The tower, however, belongs to the Middle Byzantine period, probably the 11th or 12th century, and likely served as a bastion and watchtower for the great Castle of Philippi above, guarding the branch of the Via Egnatia that ran below towards Christopolis, modern Kavala. Square in plan, with sides of 9.25 metres and walls 1.87 metres thick, its eastern and southern faces survive to two metres, while the western side is gone. Reused Roman corner stones appear in its fabric. Rubble from later buildings around it, including a coin of Michael II Komnenos Doukas, Despot of Epirus, suggests the tower was already destroyed by the mid-13th century. The nearby monolith called Orthopetra, a Roman funerary monument over eight metres high, gives the site its Turkish name, meaning Standing Stone.