Written by the author Minas Houvardas (book "Karpathos - In the cove of the Archipelago")
The need for discovery & exploration
Tourism developed from ancient times and had various motivations from time to time. In more recent times, from the 15th century onwards, motivations could be religious (pilgrimage to the Holy Land), scientific and commercial. The majority of travelers are pilgrims, clergy, relic and relic hunters, traders, corsairs, diplomats, archaeologists, antiquarians and scientists.
A traveler whose tour is connected with the island of Carpathos, was Mikalojus Kristupas Radvila Našlaitėlis (1549-1616) or Latin Nicolaus Christophorus Radzivil (Mikolai Kristosov Našlaitėlis "the Orphan"), one of the most powerful and richest nobles of Lithuania and of Poland. Having health problems, he vowed to visit the Holy Land. Accordingly, in September 1582 he set out on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, visited the famous places of Christian worship, and then took ship for Egypt.
He stayed there for two months and returned to Italy, from where he returned to his homeland in 1584. The journey lasted two years. His travelogue Ierosolymitana Peregrinatio ("Pilgrimage to Jerusalem") was first published in Latin in 1601 and became one of the most famous European travelogues of its time.
While in Cairo, Radvila Našlaitėlis bought two mummies for scientific purposes and, having packed them in boxes, loaded them on the "Shaitia", his ship. However, during the journey from Alexandria to Crete, on October 17, 1583, he found himself in the middle of a strong storm in the sea area of the Carpathian Sea, in the rocky islands of Divounia.
The ship and its crew were in danger and combined with the fact that the ship's priest began to protest claiming to see two ghosts every night, Radvila Našlaitėlis concluded that all this was caused by the mummies, which he considered pagan bodies and was finally forced to throw them into the sea:
"...and when the night became very dark, and fearful thunders and lightnings flashed often, the sailors saw the island raised high on twin rocks: from the image our sailors judged that we were on two deserted islands of the Archipelago, which were not far distant distance between them, this and that are called Divunia. [...] Now when the Saitia was nearly sunk by the force of the storm, and being shaken by the fury of the winds, she thus acquired cracks, and the rest had to constantly empty the water with the pump, the admiral, having lost all courage of him, revealed to everyone that there is no hope...".
The storm eventually subsided immediately and the "ghosts" disappeared. That same night and the next two, he observed a rare weather phenomenon, the fire of "Agios Elmos", known to the Greeks as "Aionikolides", a phenomenon caused by a corona discharge that creates a luminous plasma from a sharp object during intense electrical field in the atmosphere, such as during a thunderstorm.
He calls this "fire" the "star of St. Germani" (S. Germani sidus). At dawn on October 18, 1583, he approached Casso and found that it was uninhabited:
"and when it was day, we explored the island, to which we had set sail, it was named Kasos, it was entirely desolate and rough, with high rocks; when we had come near it, Saitia was in very great danger, because we met with reefs and rocks, which, however, could be seen in the night and avoided because of the wave which showed them with difficulty; only the ridges of the earlier rocks could be distinguished by their glow.'
After sailing through the sea passage located in Karpathos & Rhodes, finally on the evening of the next day he approached with the help of the natives a cape of Karpathos:
"and then the captain, not having a clear view of the place, durst not come near for fear of shipwreck, until in the evening we approached the fires on some promontory of the island (for it is customary to signal the sailors by lighting a fire, whenever the inhabitants saw a wandering ship, that they may approach this place in safety), seeing and controlling the shores of the island till night.'
On the morning of October 20, 1583, he approached the beach of Lefkos, west of Karpathos, to have the ship repaired and caulked, because it had been damaged by bad weather, and to be supplied with the necessary supplies:
"On the morning of the 20th of October, approaching the island, we entered the small port that used to be called Agathi and only accepts small ships. With the anchors dropped, we began to seal up the ship's cracks and cover it with tar, the sailors affirming that if she had remained in the storm for two more hours, the Saitia ship would have been lost together with us. Going down to the beach we bought the necessary things from Greeks. For though we had black fowls on board, they were drowned by the waves…”.
Radvila Našlaitėlis at this point finds the opportunity to mention a little information about Karpathos and its inhabitants:
"this island belongs to the Turks and its commander is a Turk, but it has Greek inhabitants, like the other islands of the Archipelago, and they cultivate fields and vineyards. Because they foresaw the incursions of the Turks, they took refuge in the protection of the forts, for wherever [the Turks] had appeared there was the fear of the Greeks. But when the time approaches threateningly, some ships with Janissaries come to those islands and seize the lives of the inhabitants. Some cities in this island are poor and visible from the sea, but to these the ships do not approach, because they lack a harbor. In this place where we disembarked, the little village called Lares was not far away."
The travel testimony of the Lithuanian prince about Karpathos is very important for two main reasons: first, he is the only traveler who is proven to reach the island after the first recorded testimony of Cristoforo Buondelmonti in 1420 and before the arrival of the German archaeologist and traveler L .Ross in 1843.
Secondly, thanks to his own testimony, it became possible to identify the port of Agata with the location of today's Lefkos, while at the same time we learn of the existence, at that time, of a coastal settlement called Lares, which today survives only as a toponym on the island.
The time, however, and the reasons for its abandonment remain unknown to this day. Archeology may be able to provide answers regarding this small medieval settlement of Karpathos.
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