Serifos (, , also Seriphos; Seriphos: Eth. Seriphios: Serpho) is a Greek island municipality in the Aegean Sea, located in the western Cyclades, south of Kythnos and northwest of Sifnos. It is part of the Milos regional unit. The area is and the population was 1,420 at the 2011 census. It is located about ESE of the Athenian port of Piraeus.
In Greek mythology, Serifos is where Danaë and her infant son Perseus washed ashore after her father Acrisius, in response to an oracle that his own grandson would kill him, set them adrift at sea in a wooden chest. When Perseus returned to Serifos with the head of the Gorgon Medusa, he turned Polydektes, the king of Serifos, and his retainers into stone as punishment for the king's attempt to marry his mother by force.
In antiquity, the island was proverbial for the alleged muteness of its frogs. During the Roman imperial period, Serifos was a place of exile. After 1204 it became a minor dependency of the Venetian dukes of the Archipelago. In the late 19th century Serifos experienced a modest economic boom from the exploitation of the island's extensive iron ore deposits. The mines closed in the 1960s, and Serifos now depends on tourism and small-scale agriculture.
Among early ‘tourists’ were the British travellers Theodore and Mabel Bent, landing in December 1883. Bent opens his 1885 travelogue on the Cyclades with Serifos, although the couple visited Syros first.
Antiquities
Worked blocks of island marble built into the walls of the medieval castle crowning Chora, the hilltop main town of Serifos, show that the ancient capital was there as well. Chance finds, primarily marble funerary sculpture, are displayed in the Archaeological Collection in Chora (open Tues.-Sun.).
The most impressive ancient monument is the Aspros Pýrgos (Άσπρος Πύργος), a Hellenistic marble watchtower (c. 300 BC) with walls preserved to 2 m. and an interior staircase, standing on a hilltop just east of the road from Chora to Mega Livadi, near Mega Chorio. Work began in 2011 to study the fallen blocks for an eventual reconstruction.
At least four other ancient towers have been located, including the megalithic Psaros Pyrgos (Ψαρός Πύργος) or "Couch of the Cyclops" in the SW corner of the island. The so-called "Castle of the Old Lady" (Κάστρο της Γριάς) above Ganema and Koutalas preserves scant remains of a collapsed dry-stone construction in a notch below the twin rocky summits. Rough fragments of white marble and rooftile, and archaic fine-ware potsherds on the SE terraces of the hillside suggest the existence of an ancient sanctuary.
The fortified Monastery of the Taxiarchs, dedicated to the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, was built in 1572 just outside the village of Galani. The sole monk is Archimandrite Makarios, who entered the monastery as a youth in 1958 and continues to maintain it.
Churches gallery
History
Antiquity
Serifos was colonized by Ionians from Athens, and it was one of the few islands which refused submission to Xerxes I. By subsequent writers Serifos is almost always mentioned with contempt on account of its poverty and insignificance and it was for this reason employed by the Roman emperors as a place of banishment for state criminals. It is curious that the ancient writers make no mention of the iron and copper mines of Serifos, which were, however, worked in antiquity, as is evident from existing traces, and which, one might have supposed, would have bestowed some prosperity upon the island. But though the ancient writers are silent about the mines, they are careful to relate that the frogs of Serifos differ from the rest of their fraternity by being mute.
Middle ages
Serifos was part of the Byzantine Empire until 1204, when the island came under Venetian rule. During this time the mines reopened, after about 1000 years of inactivity. In 1394 a strike of the miners against the Nikolaos Adoldos occurred.