Koufonisi, the island of ancient Lefki

Lefki, the island of archaeological discoveries

Koufonisi (Κουφονήσι) is a small uninhabited island in the Libyan Sea, lying diagonally opposite Makrygialos and belonging to the municipality of Sitia. Only some 3.6 nautical miles separate it from Cape Goudouras on the south-east coast of Crete, about ten from the harbour of Makrygialos. It is roughly six kilometres long and five and a half across, covers 5.25 square kilometres and nowhere rises higher than 82 metres. With the rocky islets of Makroulo, Strongylo, Trachilas and Marmara it forms a small archipelago that counts among the southernmost outposts of Greece. In antiquity the island was called Lefki (Λεύκη), the “White” – after the pale limestone and marl that throw back the sunlight – while the modern name is explained by its curiously fretted, seemingly hollow shores, scoured out by wind, rain and surf. The way here is by sea from Makrygialos; the crossing depends on the running of the excursion boats and on the weather, so the island is best visited on an organised trip.

Koufonisi is often called the “Delos of the Libyan Sea” or the “little Delos”. The comparison is aimed not at the size of the island but at the density of its monuments: within a small compass residential quarters, a theatre, baths, workrooms and a sanctuary have survived, and traces of settlement run from the Early Minoan period to post-Byzantine times. Lefki was no chance anchorage but an important base for seafaring in the east of Crete.

Purple and seaborne trade

The island’s greatest wealth was purple dye. It was obtained from sea snails – chiefly species of the genus Hexaplex and the spiny dye-murex (Murex brandaris); the shells were broken open and the raw material put through an elaborate process whose secrets were closely guarded. The ancient writers, Aristotle and Pliny among them, say that the snails were gathered in autumn or winter; the small ones were crushed whole, the gland was cut out of the larger, and the liquor was then treated with salt and exposed to the sun. Purple was sought after throughout the Mediterranean as a costly dye for cloth, said to be worth its weight in silver, and was regarded as a mark of high rank. On Koufonisi the archaeologists came upon rooms and vats connected with this work, and upon quantities of processed shells, together with fish-hooks and lead net-weights. The island thus lived not only from fishing and sponge-diving but produced a commodity for long-distance trade.

Town, theatre and Roman baths

The excavations, which began in 1976 under the direction of Nikolaos Papadakis and continued until 1987, uncovered a town that existed in Hellenistic and Roman times. On the north coast, at the place called Anemertia and today about ninety metres from the shore, lies a stone theatre of the 2nd century AD built into the natural slope of white limestone and facing north: its auditorium had twelve rows of seats, reached a breadth of 34 metres and held about a thousand people. The stage building, twenty metres long and some nine deep, comprised proscenium, substage and side wings; vaulted side passages led into the orchestra, a little more than a semicircle, with its pale flooring. Towards the end of the 4th century AD the richly decorated building went up in flames in an act of violence that put an end to the settlement around it as well. It is held to be one of the southernmost ancient theatres in Europe; drifting sand has since covered large parts of it again, and a geophysical survey with ground-penetrating radar in the spring of 2010 mapped what lies hidden.

Beside the theatre lay the Roman baths, in use from the 1st to the 4th century AD. In the complex one can make out the furnace room, whose walls still stand four metres high, rooms with hypocausts – underfloor heating by hot air – of which there were two, perhaps so that men and women could bathe apart, changing rooms and the halls for cold, warm and hot bathing, with remains of marble on floors and walls. A large town house was also uncovered, east of the theatre: it had at least eight rooms, an imposing porch as its entrance, opening towards the theatre’s eastern passage, kitchens and a workshop for processing the purple snails; another dwelling in the settlement numbered sixteen rooms. Black-and-white mosaics with geometric patterns of lozenges and crosses bear witness to the prosperity of the owners and show that the island was part of the Roman cultural world.

The sanctuary on the height and the ancient cemetery

On a rise in the south of the island the archaeologists examined the remains of a temple that probably belongs to the 2nd century BC; it stood on a stepped platform measuring 18 by 15.7 metres. Near its north-west corner were found two large fragments of a great cult image, an enthroned goddess in marble – part of the hip with the seat, and the draped right leg from waist to ankle – which originally stood about two and a half metres high. The temple itself was pulled down in 1920 to build the lighthouse, which rose a mere five metres from its eastern entrance and in whose masonry smaller fragments of the statue are embedded; the lighthouse in turn was bombed in 1944. North of the temple, springs fed a system of vaulted cisterns and conduits that carried water across the island to the town. Stretches of the town wall and a Minoan cemetery with stone-built tholos tombs are also attested on the island. These finds show that the history of Koufonisi began long before the Hellenistic town and continued through several ages.

From ancient harbour to deserted island

After late antiquity permanent life on the island gradually died out, and Koufonisi became uninhabited. In early Byzantine times monks sought refuge here; in the caves of the west coast, which they used as chapels, they scratched figures of saints into the rock. Later, too, the ruins did not vanish from memory: on one of the monuments incised names and a date from the 1630s survive – a trace of people, sailors for the most part, who were here in Venetian times. In April 1823, during the War of Independence, the island saw a skirmish in which twenty-eight Cretan insurgents killed the janissary Mehmet Pilavas and twenty-seven of his men. Fishermen still use the island as a refuge when the Libyan Sea turns stormy, and in the north stands the chapel of their patron, St Nicholas. Livestock was grazed here into the 1970s; no grazing rights have been granted since 1975. Today the island is protected as an archaeological landscape – and as an Important Bird Area, for Eleonora’s falcons breed here: what counts is not only the individual ruins but their connection with shore, coves, paths and sea.

Beaches, sea caves and considerate visiting

Koufonisi draws visitors not for its antiquities alone. Along its coastline of some fourteen kilometres there are reckoned to be 36 beaches large and small, with pale sand and clear water – Asproulas, Chiliaderfia, Faros below the lighthouse and Anemertia by the theatre among them – as well as sea caves which the excursion boats approach. There is no shade, drinking water or refreshment on the island; everything must be brought. The place has kept its sense of remoteness, and the visitor should stay on the marked paths, not touch stones or masonry and leave no litter behind. In that way the unspoilt shore and the archaeological monuments remain parts of one whole.