Karpathos

Abstract

Karpathos lies midway between Rhodes and Crete, at the southern limit of the Dodecanese. The island is 48 km long, with a steep mountain range (1,200 m at its highest point) running north to south, and one major harbor on the southeastern coast at Pigahdia. The name Karpathos is pre‐Greek, and Diodorus Siculus (5.54.4) reports that soldiers of Minos first settled the island; tombs containing Minoan and Mycenaean pottery have been found at Pigahdia. Karpathos appears in the Catalogue of Ships (Hom. Il . 2.676–80) and in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (42–3), and gave its name to the southeastern part of the Aegean Sea (Strabo 2.5.21).