Since antiquity Athenians took over the island, then Macedonians, then Egyptians, then Macedonians and then the Romans. The Romans destroyed the island because of a coalition between Serifos and King Pontus Mithridates IV against the Romans. After the Romans, Serifos population vanished (genocide) and the island was used by the Romans to exile criminals to.
The island was repopulated by its neighbors. Immigrants from Mykonos, Paros, Karpathos, Euboea and Amorgos came to the island to work in mines. Unfortunately, they didn’t know the ancient history of the island and none of the modern inhabitants have been able to figure out where the ancient city from Antiquity was.
I had to do something a little different to reconstruct the island’s history. Serifos should have had a lot of ancient watchtowers and only two were named on the island by modern inhabitants. Sifnos, which is Serifos’ mining neighbor to the south, has over 60 watchtowers. I downloaded a higher resolution satellite image (500ft) and tracked down as many possible ancient watchtowers and ancient paths that I could find visible on the high resolution satellite image. From that I reconstructed some of Serifos’ lost history.
Serifos at the Last Glacial Maximum
Serifos was not inhabited at the last glacial and remained an isolated island like Sifnos and Kithnos. At the LGM, Serifos was pretty much the same shape as today but larger and stretched out to the island of Vous.The formation of the island of Serifos is similar to the island of Sifnos to the south. However, Serifos has more rare minerals than Sifnos and Sifnos got more gold in its formation. Serifos does have copper, silver, and gold as well along with rare garnets and rare quartz.
Other minerals on Serifos include (but are not limited to) the following list: Actinolite, Albite, Allanite, Amethyst, Andradite, Ankerite, Apatite, Aragonite, Arsenosiderite, Atacamite, Azurite, Barite, Beudantite, Biotite, Brochantite, Calcite, Chalcopyrite, Chamosite, Chlorite, Chrysocolla, Conichalcite, Connellite, Copper, Diopside, Dolomite, Epidote, Fluorite, Galena, Garnets, Glaucophane, Goethite, Graphite, Hedenbergite, Hematite, Ilvaite, Limonite, Magnetite, Malachite, Manganese Oxides, Manganese Dendrites, Muscovite, Nantokite, Orthoclase, Pharmacosiderite, Phlogopite, Prase, Pyrite, Quartz, Scapolite, Sepiolite, Sericite, Siderite, Spangolite, Sphalerite, Szaibelyite, Talc, Titanite, Tournaline and Wollastonite.
Links to Serifos Geology
• Collecting Rocks on Serifos• Endemic species on serifos
• Geological Tourism of Serifos
• Koutalas Cave on Serifos
• Mineral List on Serifos
• Natura Serifos
• Serifos Rocks
Serifos at the Mesolithic
Serifos was first colonized by Carians like Kythnos to the north and Milos to the south. According to the historians Herodotus, Thucydides, and Diodorus of Rhodes, Carians were the first inhabitants, then Leleges, and then Pelasgians.
Fullsize image on Blog.com, 232KB
• DETAILED: Serifos at the Mesolithic with Bay Names and RegionsThe oldest remains on Serifos are only the 3rd millenium B.C.E. But the modern inhabitants of the islands are miners from other islands that came to Serifos in the 1800s and 1900s, so they wouldn’t know where the ancient cities were.
Kythnos to the north was colonized by Carians between the 9th and 8th millenium B.C.E. And Milos was colonized by Carians during the mesolithic (Polyaigos has mesolithic remains). Serifos should have circular stone housing dating to the mesolithic like Kythnos’ Maroulas site. In present time, Maroulas is sea-side and most of the mesolithic city has sunk into the sea.
There are a few areas on Serifos which are the most likely to have mesolithic groups. The first area is the northwest side of the island (closest area to Kythnos island) at Sikamia Bay and Karava Bay. Most of the rivers that dump into the bay originate at elevations above 400 meters. Lots of good fresh water in the mesolithic.
Other regions highly likely for mesolithic inhabitation would be Livadi Bay and Psili Amos Bay. Both had good strong rivers originating at elevations above 400 meters.
• Serifos History: Gives Citations of Historians on Carians, Leleges, Pelasgians
Serifos at the Neolithic
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The word Serifos comes from a medicinal plant called “serfi”, otherwise known as wormwood. I tried to do a botany study for Serifos and had great difficulty. There doesn’t seem to be any online catalog of the island’s plants. There should be since the island takes its name from a medicinal plant. After several days searching online for Serifos plants, I did find that over 2/3rds of the plants associated with Hecate are found on Serifos: mandragora, hellabore, hecateis (aconite), poppy, lavender, mint, and others. Since Serifos was colonized by Carians, there would have been Demeter, Persephone and Hecate worship beginning in the neolithic. And by antiquity, Hecate was the protecting goddess of the island. Hecate’s medicinal frogs were minted in silver on the coins in ancient times. Many mistake the frogs for a story about Perseus and alleged “silent frogs”. The inhabitants of Serifos say there’s no silent frogs on the island. The frogs there make as much noise as any other frog.
The frog on the silver coin therefore refers to Hecate as Hecate was depicted with either frogs or snakes in ancient times. The frog side of the silver coin was replaced with a snake-headed goddess which was Hecate (not Medusa). Hecate on the island of Agina, northwest of Serifos, was also sculpted as a serpent-headed goddess. Serpent headed goddesses are usually either Hecate, a Titan-form of Rhea (like on Crete), or La Bona Dea in Italy (aka. The Good Goddess of Medicine).
Since the frog side of the silver coin was replaced with the serpent headed goddess, then we know that it is Hecate being depicted on the coin, as only Hecate is depicted as both a frog-headed goddess and a serpent-headed goddess. It is not Medusa on the coin. Think about it logically. Since Serifos is the birthplace of Perseus, why would anyone on the island put Medusa on the coin? They wouldn’t. The frog and the serpent-headed goddess are Hecate, not Medusa. And the goddess Hecate originates with the Carians who were Serifos’ first inhabitants.
Eye of newt and toe of frog
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake
Since it’s referring to Hecate frogs, that means using the frog-skin secretions for brews, either medicinal or poisonous. Ancient Serifos found its frogs to be of such medicinal value that they minted them in silver. The only other frogs throughout the world to be minted in silver, gold or jade were either medicinal frogs or poisonous frogs like the poison-arrow frog.
Considering Serifos’ long list of RARE minerals on the island, imagine what minerals the frogs absorb into their skin, which they also secrete from their skin. 10% of Nobel Prizes in Medicine have gone to people who invented medicines from frog skin secretions. Only thing with Serifos, is you can’t take the frogs off the island. What would make their frog-skin secretions so unique is that they’d be absorbing the rare minerals from the island in their skin. If you take the frog off the island and put it in a lab, then the frog is no longer absorbing the rare minerals of the island of Serifos. If you put a common frog on Serifos, even a common frog is going to have unique skin secretions if its absorbing the minerals of Serifos.
The problem then is figuring out which area of the island had the unique Hecate-silver minted frogs. And since the modern island inhabitants are all immigrants after the Roman genocide, they really don’t know the value of their frogs to the world of medicine, in ancient times or modern times. The modern inhabitants don’t even know where the ancient cities were on the island. In different areas of the island, the frogs will be absorbing different unique minerals into their skins.
It had to be a region of ancient silver mines with nearby frogs that had Carian inhabitants from the Neolithic. The most likely regions of Neolithic agriculture were Sikamia Bay, Karava Bay, Avesalos Bay, Kalo Ambeli Bay, Livadi Bay and Psili Amos Bay. All had good, strong rivers for agriculture. Early Hecate worship originates with those Carian settlers and it would be the regions that also has silver that would have minted the frog in the silver. The regions that most likely also had sunken silver mines were Sikamia Bay and Psili Amos Bay. Avesalos Bay has copper and Kalo Ambeli Bay has copper. I will also leave Kalo Ambeli Bay open for other mines in addition to copper since so much of that particular bay sunk.
Other sites about the Carian goddess Hecate and her Frogs
• August 15th: Serifos Biggest Festival (August 15 is also Hecate’s Festival)• Frog Skin May Provide ‘Kiss of Death” for Anti-biotic resistant germs
• Hecate
• Hecate As A Serpent Goddess on Agina Island
• Hecate Info
• Hecate Mythology
• Mandragora Autumnalis on Serifos: Hecate’s Plant
• Medieval Magic to Modern Medicine: Frog Skin
• Save the Frogs: Medicine
• Serifos is a Medicinal Plant
• Toadskin Spell: PBS’s Nature
Serifos at the Early Bronze Age
Officially, the island’s oldest remains date to the mid-3rd millenium, about the time that Leleges bring the bronze age to islands like Mykonos, Sifnos and Serifos. But do note that Carians were the first inhabitants even though nothing older has been found on the island yet.
After tracking down all possible towers and ancient roads via 500 ft resolution Google satellite image, the regions of human inhabitation on Serifos were somewhat different in ancient times than modern times. The modern immigrants from the 1800s and 1900s built some of their cities in different regions than the ancient mines.
Right now, only two official towers are mentioned to the tourists, which is the tower at Psaropirgos and the tower at Aspropirgos. There are inhabitants in the Megalo Livadi and Megalo Chorio region at the early bronze age.
I realize that the towers are traditionally Hellenistic, but I overlayed them all on Bronze Age maps to show where the mines might have begun on the island in the Bronze Age through Hellenistic times. The Sikamia region should have been inhabited during the mesolithic and neolithic and there’s 8 possible watchtowers that show up on high resolution satellite image. Based on the geology of the region and the number of towers, it’s most likely a silver mine. But it would be a sunken silver mine. The ancient roads visible on satellite connected to those towers exit off the coast in 10 different sections, meaning the mines are sunken just like the silver mines sunk on Sifnos.
The Sikamia mines clearly sunk before the rise of Christianity, or the inhabitants of the Sikamia region were destroyed by the Romans in 146 B.C.E. I’m rather hoping that the mines sunk before the Roman destruction which would mean an intact sunken Apollo or Artemis temple in Sikamia Bay.
The Eastern Orthodox church seems to have known about one of the towers and tried to claim the land next to it and built a church. But you can tell that they didn’t know where the silver mine was, only that they found a tower, thus the church seized the land on the tail-end of the mine.
No one seems to know about the Sikias Bay sunken mines. The area has virtually no modern inhabitants and the church didn’t flock there trying to claim the mine-region as theirs. All the paths connecting to the towers go straight off the coast, meaning the mines are sunken. And since there’s no modern buildings in the region, I assure you, the paths are ancient. Since the church didn’t claim that region, the mines might have sunk before Roman invasion, which might mean an intact sunken Apollo or Artemis temple.
In the Kalo Ambeli region, which has lost the most coastline, I could only find two visible possible towers on a high resolution satellite image. The region is known to presently have copper. So this area would be the first copper mining for the bronze. There might be more sunken towers in the bay and a lot of paths that hug the shore or dip into the shore with no buildings nor inhabitants around them.
In Notino Bay, I’m not sure what the mines were. The south tower was probably for copper as the dirt road visible on satellite connected to it goes into Avesalos Bay, south of Kato Kavos. Avesalos Bay has copper. But the geology of Notino Bay is slightly different than the rock structure of Avesalos Bay, meaning that I’m uncertain what type of mine was in Notino Bay. Two of the towers have roads going into Notino Bay. The region has no modern inhabitants at all, so the roads there are ancient.
There are about 5 possible towers north and east of Livadi Bay. One was seized by the church who built Agios Sostis there between Psili Amos Bay and Agios Sostis Bay. The Eastern Orthodox church did the same thing on Sifnos. When they realized that silver might be off the coast, they built a church also called Agios Sostis next to a Sifnos silver mine.
Serifos Bronze Age Links
• Bronze Age Ceramics on Seriphos• Copper in Avesalos Bay
• Copper in Koutalas
Serifos c. 2000 B.C.E.
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Mycenaeans were on Serifos but no one seems to know for certain where. My best guess is where the most ancient towers were south of Megalo Livadi.
From high resolution satellite, there is an odd wall enclosure structure visible (the wall is marked in red on the above map), but nothing inside it. It looks like wall ruins from satellite, but not sure if they are Mycenean or later, just that there are walls there. The Megalo Livadi region has 8 possible towers visible on satellite. Only the Psaropirgos tower is mentioned to tourists. Five others possible towers are hugging the coastline with roads going into the sea and some of those roads do not connect to Megalo Livadi. In this particular region, the church and the monastery either might be built on an older temple (perhaps Apollo temple) or they used materials from ancient temples. By the sheer number of towers (8), this region is the most likely for the sunken gold mine. The structure of the region is folded geological mix: schists with marbles, ankeritized schists, amphibolites with gneisses, mylonitic orthogneisses, altered serpentinites, dolomite and calcite marbles and beaches and sediments all folded together in this little area of the island.
The gold on Serifos would have sunk, just like the gold mines on Sifnos sunk.
Serifos: Archaic Age to Antiquity
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Most of the bays look similar to their modern shapes by the Archaic Age. There is still a large segment of sunken land in Livadi Bay, Kalo Abeli Bay, Psili Amos Bay and Sikamia Bay that would date to Antiquity. Those areas lost the most coast because more rivers, streams and washes flow into them as compared with other areas of the island. And the rivers dumping into those regions all originate at elevations above 450 meters.
The towers of the ancient past are in different locations than the modern inhabitants. Both Megalo Livadi and Megalo Chorio are abandoned towns in modern times. Megalo Chorio abandoned in the past and Megalo Livadi abandoned in the early 1900s after the mining strike. The bulk of the island’s modern population lives inland and upland at Chora (Serifos), Galani, Kentarhos, Pirgos and Panagia. The only direct sea-side cities are Sikamia, Agios Ioanis, Livadi, Ramos, Ganema, and Koutalas. The rest of the island is vacant buildings from different time periods.
Clearly the Trachilas coast, north of Agios Ioanis used to have ancient inhabitants as there’s 7 possible mining towers in the region. Supposedly the region has iron, but realistically, they don’t have that many watchtowers if it’s just iron. The more valuable the mine, the more watchtowers. Gold mines usually have 7-10 watchtowers. Silver mines had 4-6 watchtowers and Copper had 2-3 watchtowers. The region has 7, but spread out, so maybe copper and silver? Not sure what’s on the coast but no one lives in the region in modern times.
More History & Info on Serifos
• Naias Seriphia: Nymph of Serifos• Serifos: About the island
• Serifos: All About
• Serifos Customs
• Serifos: Full History
• Serifos History: Official Site
• Serifos History
• Serifos Island History
• Serifos Mythology
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