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The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

Asfontylitis village, Amorgos island, eastern Cyclades / Aegean Sea

By Desolation Road

July 6^th, 2020

On the bare ridges of mountainous Amorgos, in total harmony with the raw landscape, and on the old path that connected the main settlement of Chora with the port of Aegiali in the north, lays the deserted rural village of Asfontylitis. Plagued by the strong winds of the Aegean Sea, the stones of its houses and of its walls, between the prickly pears, are burning under the summer sun.

Apart from the fact that the history of this settlement has its roots in antiquity, and the Cycladic civilization, mainly thanks to the water passages located in the bowels of the mountain and filling the dozens of wells in the village to reap the small fields on the stone terraces, Asfontylitis is also connected with a 20th century story, the strange story of Michalis Roussos.

Michalis Roussos lived in Asfontylitis in the first half of the 20th century. Being disabled, he could not easily move with his chair on the narrow and cluttered labyrinthine streets of the settlement. So, as he waited for several hours for his relatives to finish their work, he spent his time making petroglyphs with a hammer and a chisel.

The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

In almost half a century, until 1943, Michalis Roussos crafted about 200 petroglyphs on the walls of the houses of Asfondylitis - many of which were inspired by the information he heard from passers-by about the successive wars in which Greece participated: the Balkan Wars, the campaign in Anatolia, the two world wars. For this reason he used to frequent the cisterns, because the passers-by stopped to catch their breath, to drink water, to cool off, and of course to exchange a few words about the news they were hearing in the villages.

Some of his other rock paintings depicted animals (especially farm animals such as goats and oxen), snapshots of festivals with people dancing in pairs or musicians holding instruments or wine flasks, while many of his works depicted female figures.

Women seem to have played an important role in Roussos' life. He repeats the female figures he names Anthoula and Dafnoula (and others) in several of his works. However, none of the last surviving members of the early 20th century in the surrounding settlements remember girls or women with such names.

There are only two male names carved, his own and one Dimitris, both mentoned once. At the entrances of other houses, he carved one or more crosses, or the initials of the owners - and on another the words wine, milk, honey, which may have indicated that the building functioned as a grocery store.

The village is said to have taken its name from the daffodils (asfodeloi, in Greek), which covered the landscape with their countless white flowers like a carpet in spring. This was the time of the year when the settlement was coming back to life after the harsh winters, thanks to the shepherds who led their flocks there when the weather was improving.

The houses of Asfontylitis seem like they’re placed randomly, and have the peculiarity of very small windows - perhaps for protection from the relentless sun, and thus for coolness. Each stone house had a seaweed roof, made from a now almost extinct cypress species of the Cyclades island complex.

Inside they had an oven, benches and beds all made of stone. In their yard, smaller buildings housed the animals or the storage of raw materials - mainly cheese, which the shepherds used to let it to dry on reeds in the warehouses. Windmills do not exist, as the mountain in the village’s spine prevented the north wind.

The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

A building of Asfontylitis that has always stood out, however, was the plastered all-white church of Agios Nikolaos, which recently underwent some renovation work that did not necessarily match the stone physiognomy of the village. The priest from the central village of Potamos and the inhabitants of the surrounding villages (Halara, Riza, Apolaka, Xyrokambi) used to gather there for the Sunday church service before their villages desolated in the 1950s.

The once green fields of wheat and fava beans along the entire slope, all the way down to the pristine beach of Chalara on the east side of the mountain, are now dry, while only a few resistant figs and some vineyards are left from the old multitude of trees.

The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

The petroglyphs of Asfontylitis

Visiting Asfontylitis village

A modern road from the main axis that connects Chora and Aegiali crosses the primitive stone and wild landscape and reaches the ruined settlement of Asfontylitis. You can visit the village at any time, while many of the rock paintings are in common view, most of them on the main road of the village. Keep in mind that in the spring and summer the tall grass hides many of the petroglyphs. More information can be found in the nearest village, Potamos. At the entrance of the settlement the traditional cafe To steki tou Machaira serves wonderful homemade food cooked with recipes of Amorgos and Kalymnos, but it is necessary to call beforehand (tel.:+306936671031).

[Sources: Vivianna Metallinou (Architect) / Elias Provopoulos: ‘The Kingdom of Asfontylitis’ / Tasos Anastasiou: ‘Travelogue in Amorgos” / myamorgos.blogspot.com]

Footnotes

Text & photography Copyright: Desolation Road 2014 / Adrian Jackson

FootNotes

Text & photography Copyright: Desolation Road 2014 / Adrian Jackson

© 2026 Desolation Road

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