In
the middle of the 18th century there was a flourishing
trade business in Tzia. Consuls of all big European
states settled here. The nearly 3,000 inhabitants of
the island produced huge quantities of excellent quality
wine, barley and acorns (used as raw materials for leather
dyes) and piled up riches from trade. With
a perimeter of 85 Km and an area of 131 Km squared,
Tzia is the sixth largest Cycladic island but also one
of the least populated, numbering less than 2000 permanent
inhabitants. 600 of them live in Ioulida, which is the
island's largest village, followed by Korisia, the island's
port with 350 inhabitants. The rest live in rural settlements
(about thirty) scattered all over the island. Most locals
are farmers. They rear cattle, keep bee-hives, grow
almond-trees, vines and some cereal crops and garden
produce (for home consumption). Only recently did they
start having some income from tourism.
The
bay of Aghios Nikolaos at the northern coast has always been
a safe haven. It is here that one of the first settlements appeared
on the island (known as the Aghia Irini settlement), named after
the little peninsula near Vourkaki). Artefacts found here point
to a Cycladic civilization as old as 2500 B.C., which reached
its height at ca 1500 B.C.. It was here, too, that the Ionian
settlement of Korrisia flourished in the archaic and classical
eras. The bay offered a safe refuge for the fleets of the Byzantines,
the Franks (1207-1278), the Venetians (1296-1537), the Turks
(1537-1821) and for pirate ships as well in the troubled years
of the Frankish rule. In 1789 Lambros Katsonis, a lone fighter
against the Turks, was blocked here by the Turkish fleet, managed
however to escape by dragging his boat at a very narrow tongue
of land, known today as the "Katsonis passage". The
island is almost entirely composed of slate, which is the material
used by the locals - most experienced stone-masons - to build
their houses ("Kathikies"), the terraces which hold
the scant soil ("ochtes"), the stone-paved paths which
run across the whole island and pretty country churches, hidden
jewels in every corner of the island. A
little northeast of Ioulida, reached by a ten-minute walk on
a nice cobbled path, is the Lion of Kea, an archaic sculpture
(600 B.C.) hewed out of the rock, depicting a lion lying down
smiling! This may have been the way the ancient people of Kea
chose to exorcise the mythical lion of Kea - a symbol of the
calamities, which hit the island in the Mythical Era.
Map of Cyclades Islands
Map of Kea
In
spite of being so close to Attica (only 16 miles south of Laurium)
and boasting some of the most beautiful beaches in the Cycladic
islands, Tzia has yet been spared of touristical "development".
You can still lie peacefully on marvellous sandy beaches, accessible
only on foot or by boat, where the only human traces are a desolate
country church, a fisherman's hut or the ruins of an ancient
city. There are very few hotels on the island, but plenty of
rooms to rent in the high season, as well as a comfortable camp
site in Pisses. The
Ionian settlers who arrived on the island towards the end of
the 12th century B.C. founded four cities, which formed the
"Tetrapolis of Kea". An exemplary social organization
was developed. Ioulis, built on a steep hill in the island,
and therefore well protected from private raids, has always
been (and still is) the centre of the island's life and has
proved the most long-lived of all. Korisia, on the northern
coast, was a convenient harbour for the maritime trade of the
Ionians, as was Pilessa on the western coast. The most prosperous
and grandest of all, however, may have been Karthea, built on
the coastal rocky area around the quiet Poles bay. The impressive
ruins of the temple of Apollo, the temple of Minerva, the city
walls and the ancient theatre, all witness to the great prosperity
Karthea once knew.
During
the last period of the Turkish rule and up until the beginning
of this century, the main exported product of Tzia, which made
many of its people rich, was acorns, used as a raw material in
the tanneries of that time. Even today, many parts of the island
are covered by dense clumps of oak trees offering shelter to a
rich wild fauna. If
you have the chance to visit a country home in Tzia you will
be amazed by the practicality and wisdom of traditional folk
archiyecture. The "stegadi" (the main chamber of the
house with its thick stone walls and a roof made from a single
piece of slate and a thick layer of earth above it) is a cool
oasis even in the hottest summer afternoons, while in winter
it keeps out the icy northern winds and maintains a cozy warmth
inside.
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