Delos

Traces of settlement on Delos go back to the 3rd millennium BC, and by the Archaic period the sanctuary of Apollo was a major religious centre. Shortly before 600 BC the people of Naxos dedicated a row of marble lions along the Sacred Way, seven of which survive. In the 5th century BC the island held the common treasury of the Delian League until Pericles moved it to Athens in 454 BC, and Athenian purifications later banned births and burials on the island.

In 166 BC Rome made Delos a free port, and it became a crowded commercial hub of the eastern Mediterranean, home to merchants from many lands and their temples and houses. Attacks during the Mithridatic Wars in 88 and 69 BC began a long decline, and the island was eventually abandoned. Excavations began in 1872 and continue today. UNESCO inscribed Delos on the World Heritage List in 1990.

Delos has no village or permanent population; apart from site staff and archaeologists, it is uninhabited, and visitors must leave on the last boat. Its connection with daily life now runs through Mykonos, whose boatmen and guides ferry visitors across each morning, and whose Archaeological Museum displays further finds from Delos and neighbouring Rhenia. For Greeks, the island remains a powerful symbol of the ancient religious and commercial world of the Aegean.