Kotsakios Tower

Kotsakios Tower is a ruin with a story that outlives its stones. Built between 1259 and 1283, it was one of more than seventy defensive towers guarding the dependencies, or metochia, of the Mount Athos monasteries across Chalkidiki. This particular tower belonged to the Iviron monastery and formed part of its Koutsaki estate. Its life was long but unkind. The Turks destroyed it in 1821 during the Greek War of Independence, and it was never repaired, though it remained standing into the 1920s. Then it was demolished with dynamite so its stone could be reused in the construction of the nearby elementary school. For decades it was little more than a pile of rubble, until recent clearing exposed a small portion of the tower's base. Curiously, the builders seem to have used spolia from the ancient city of Akanthos, giving this Byzantine watchtower a classical skeleton beneath its monastic purpose.