The island (history, nature, food…)
The history of Elafonisos
From prehistoric settlements and the Athenians to pirates, a thousand empty years and union with Greece in 1850.
Elafonisos is small, but it lies on one of the busiest passages in the Mediterranean: the strait between the island and Kythira, the shortest sea route between the Ionian and the Aegean. That is why its history is full of ships, pirates and sea battles.
The first inhabitants
The area was already inhabited in the Neolithic. Bronze Age traces have been found at Pavlopetri, in today’s village, at Kato Nisi and at many other spots on the island. Back then Elafonisos was a peninsula, joined to the mainland opposite.
Ancient times
Ancient sources speak of a sanctuary of Athena and a temple of Apollo in the area. In the Peloponnesian War, in 413 BC, the Athenians under Demosthenes and Charicles fortified, as Thucydides writes, an “isthmus-like” spot opposite Kythira, which is identified with Elafonisos. Ancient cart roads, now running into the sea, joined the settlements to the mainland.
According to local research, a great earthquake in the 4th century AD began to cut the peninsula off from the mainland. The separation was gradual; even in the 17th century the crossing was so shallow it could almost be walked.
Pirates and empty centuries
Arab fleets passed through the strait on their campaigns, and in the 9th century, local tradition says, Saracens took the island and killed its people. For many centuries Elafonisos stayed almost empty, while it passed to Saracens, Franks, Venetians, Ottomans, the French and the British. Venetian–Ottoman sea battles were fought in its waters in 1572, 1717 and 1718.
Union with Greece
In the early 19th century the island was counted as part of the Ionian Islands, together with Kythira, which came under British protection in 1815. Kapodistrias encouraged Greeks to settle there; his 1829 census counted 17 families. A dispute with Britain followed, until on 6 July 1850 an agreement joined Elafonisos to Greece for good. Since 2003 the island has celebrated the anniversary every 6 July.
The island is settled again
A decree of 1837 organised the new settlement, and from the middle of the 19th century the first settlers came: the Grigorakis family from the Mani, then other Maniots, people from Kythira, Vatika and Crete. Today’s islanders descend from them.
