Penthodos

A vast, little-known ruin sprawls across a mountain southwest of Karyes on Chios, opposite the island’s famous Nea Moni monastery and some fifteen kilometres from the modern town. This is no ordinary fortress but a castle-city, covering over five hectares with more than two kilometres of walls, towers, buildings and wells still surviving, albeit in rather poor condition. The rough construction, using semi-finished stones with scant mortar, points to the Middle Byzantine period rather than antiquity or the later Genoese occupation (1346-1566). Historians have long suspected this was the island’s medieval capital, “Old Chios”, abandoned when coastal life became safer after the 10th century. The theory gains support from a 1420 map by Cristoforo Buondelmonti, who marks a fortification here and notes that the old city stood on an inaccessible mountain, with the monastery of La Coronata at its foot. The site remains unexplored, and no researcher has seriously studied it since Zolotas in 1923.