Geraki tower

About five hundred metres south of the Laconia village of Geraki, in an olive grove near the Byzantine church of Agios Nikolaos, stands a modest but puzzling fortification. Locals call the spot Pyrgos, meaning tower, and so the site is known as the Tower of Geraki, though it is really a middle-sized fort. Its perimeter runs to 210 metres, enclosing some 2,730 square metres, with walls surviving to a fair height around most of the circuit. On the eastern side lie the remains of a tall tower, but no trace of interior buildings remains. Nothing is recorded of its history in any source, ancient or modern. The masonry resembles that of the nearby Frankish castle of Geraki, built around the mid-13th century and later altered by the Byzantines of the Despotate of Mystras, suggesting a date between the late 13th and early 15th centuries. Its purpose is equally unclear: too robust for a landlord's residence or monastery, it may have served as a military staging post.