Camirus

Listen first. On this hillside the loudest sound is often the cicadas, a dry and steady buzz from the pine trees. Under your feet the ground is pale grey stone and dust, warm even in the morning. Below you, the slope runs down in terraces toward the Aegean. Here, on the western coast of Rhodes, the remains of an ancient Greek city lie open to the sky. This is Camirus, which Greeks today call Kamiros.

In the classical age, Rhodes was not ruled from one capital. It held three independent cities. Lindos lay on the east coast. Ialysos lay in the north. Camirus held the fertile west. All three were Dorian, a branch of the Greek people with its own dialect and customs. Together with three other cities across the water, they formed a league called the Dorian Hexapolis, which simply means the six Dorian cities.

Camirus is old enough to appear in Homer. In the Iliad, the Catalogue of Ships lists the warriors who sailed to Troy. Among them are Rhodians from Lindos, Ialysos, and Camirus. Homer gives Camirus a short description, often translated as chalky or white-shining. Look around at the pale limestone of the hill, and the old phrase makes sense. Nearly three thousand years later, the colour of this ground has not changed.

The city has a founding story too, but it belongs to legend, not to history. According to Greek myth, the sun god Helios loved the nymph Rhodos, and the island took her name. Their descendants divided the land. One grandson was named Kameiros, and locals say the city carries his name. Archaeologists cannot confirm any of this. Still, the tale shows how deeply the people of Rhodes linked their island to the sun.

Now look at the shape of the site. Camirus was built on three levels, climbing the hill like a staircase. At the bottom lay the public spaces, with sanctuaries and gathering places. In the middle sat the homes, packed along a grid of streets. At the top stood the acropolis, the sacred high point of the city. As you walk upward today, you follow the same route ancient residents took, from the market to the temple.

On the lower level, look for a small square framed by stone bases and steps. This was a sacred area, used for offerings and civic ceremonies. Nearby stand the remains of a Doric temple. Doric is the plainest Greek style of column, thick and without decoration at the top. Only parts of the foundations and a few column pieces survive. Even so, you can still trace the outline of the building on the ground.

Climb into the middle level and the city becomes more personal. Narrow streets run straight up the slope, and side lanes branch off them. On both sides you see the stone walls of houses, often built around small open courtyards. In a few places, columns have been set upright again. They help you picture a shaded courtyard, a doorway, a family going about its day. Notice how close together everything sits. This was a crowded, working town.

Here is a detail many visitors walk straight past. Rainwater mattered enormously on this dry hillside. Near the top of the site, archaeologists found a large cistern, a stone tank for storing water, dating to the Archaic period, roughly the sixth century before the common era. Later the city covered it and built over it. Water collected from roofs and paving flowed through channels toward storage. If you look closely at the ground, you may spot cut grooves and openings that once carried it.

At the top of the hill stood the city's most important sanctuary, dedicated to Athena. Above the old cistern, the people of Camirus later built a long stoa. A stoa is a covered walkway with a row of columns along its front, used for shade, meetings, and trade. Some of its columns have been raised again. Stand beside them and turn toward the sea. Ancient visitors stood in this same place and saw this same wide stretch of water.

Why did such a city fade? Part of the answer is politics. In 408 before the common era, the three cities of Rhodes joined together and founded a new shared capital at the northern tip of the island. That city is Rhodes town, where many travellers stay today. Camirus did not disappear at once. But power, trade, and wealth slowly moved north. Over time, this hillside became a quieter place.

The second part of the answer is the earth itself. Rhodes sits in a region where earthquakes are common. Ancient sources and later studies record strong earthquakes in the third and second centuries before the common era. Camirus was damaged badly and rebuilt more than once. Much of what you see today belongs to these Hellenistic rebuildings, the period after Alexander the Great. Eventually, the city was abandoned, and soil and pine needles slowly covered the stones.

For centuries the site lay buried. Then, in the middle of the nineteenth century, two European excavators began digging here and in the ancient cemeteries nearby. Many finds left the island, and a large number of them are now in the British Museum in London. In the twentieth century, while Italy governed the Dodecanese islands, Italian archaeologists carried out systematic excavations. They uncovered much of the town plan you are walking through now, and they re-erected some columns.

The objects found in the tombs around Camirus tell a story of wide connections. Archaeologists recovered painted pottery, jewellery, and small figures. Some items were made locally. Others came from across the Greek world and beyond, from places like Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean. A quiet farming town, then, was also linked to the sea routes of its time. Ships passing this coast brought goods, ideas, and styles, and the people here clearly had the means to buy them.

Before you leave, stand still for a moment near the top. Look down the straight street toward the water. Notice the light on the pale stone, the dark green of the pines, and the blue line of the sea beyond. The cicadas are still buzzing. As you walk back down, let your hand rest on a wall that someone built more than two thousand years ago. It is still warm from the same sun.