Ancient settlements around Galaxidi

Galaxidi is a blessed place. The variety and mellowness of the landscape offers natural beauty and advantages: the hills near the coast provide places for settlement, the small but fertile valleys and the gentle slopes cultivable land, while the surrounding mountain ranges protection and ample water. What distinguishes Galaxidi is its direct connection with the sea. The small, continuous bays offer safe harbours, determining already from prehistoric times the fate of this small place.

The older traces of settlement date from the Early Helladic I-II period (3000 B.C.) and are found at four sites: Dexameni or Pelekaris (1), Kefalari with fortification (2), the small island of Apsifia (3), and Anemokambi (4). The inhabitants, apart from being farmers cultivating the land and breeding animals, were certainly fishermen and seafarers too. During the Late Mycaenean period (1400 – 100 B.C.) there was a settlement at the site of Villa or Goumarnas (5) and another at Anemokambi.*
At the end of the Geometric period (around 700 B.C.) a hidden, fortified settlement was built on the hill of Agios Athanasios (6), may be because of danger from the sea.

During the Archaic and Classical periods (7th – 4th c. B.C.), one settlement existed at the site of Villa or Goumarnas and another large one was founded at Agios Vlassis (7); the latter must have been the religious and administrative centre of the city of Chaleion,* which is identified today with Galaxidi. Αncient Oiantheia, formerly identified with Galaxidi, was in fact in Vitrinitsa. From the 5th c. B.C., Chaleion is referred to in ancient Greek literature (Ekataios,Thucydides) as an important city of Western Lokris.

The ruins of circular fortification of St. Athanasios hill

Vessels of protohelladic period

The church of St. Vlasis and the surounding area