Karpathos

Karpathos (Greek: Κάρπαθος, Turkish : Kerpe, Italian :Scarpanto, Latin :Carpathus; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is the second largest of the Greek Dodecanese islands, in southeast Aegean sea.

Geography

The island is located about 29.4 miles south-west of Rhodes, in that part of the Mediterranean which was called, after it, the "Carpathian Sea" (Carpathium Mare).

Karpathos is comprised of 10 villages. All villages preserve intensively the traditional style of the island. In the South East of the island you can find Pigadia (Karpathos), capital and main port of the island. The capital is surrounded by the villages of Menetes, Arkasa, Aperi, Volada, Othos, and Piles. In the North one can find Mesochori, Spoa and Olympos the last village in the North of the island, of great folkloric and architectural interest.There are 2 ports in the island ,one is in the town of Karpathos and the other one is in the north of the island next to Olymbos named Diafani .The boats come 3 times a week from Creta and Rhodes.There is airport with everyday flights from Athens and Rhodes 3 times a day .Charters flights come from April to November from all Europe.Also there is a small boat to Kasos everyday from FINIKI port near to Arkassa village,and an other one from Karpathos to Diafani(in the summer time)

Population

The latest estimate of the island's permanent population is around 6000 people. This number more than doubles in the summer months as many Karpathians with their families come to the island for their vacation. Also, taking into consideration the number of tourists that visit, there can be up to 20,000 people on the island during the summer months.

History

War and conquest define Karpathos' history. Karpathians fought with Sparta in the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC and lost their independence to Rhodes in 400 BC. In 42 BC the island fell to Rome. In the following centuries, Karpathos was ruled in turn by the Arabs, the Genovese pirate Moresco, the Venetians, and the Ottoman Empire. It was both in ancient and medieval times closely connected with Rhodes; it was held by noble families under Venetian suzerainty, notably the Cornaro from 1306 to 1540, when it finally passed into the possession of the Turks. From its remote position Karpathos has preserved many peculiarities of dress, customs and dialect, the last resembling those of Crete and Cyprus. Ottoman rule ended when the Italians conquered the island, together with the whole Dodecanese, during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-12. Karpathos even found itself ruled by the Italians years before the end of World War II. KARPATHOS become Greek teritorry in 1948. Its current name is mentioned, with a slide shift of one letter, in Homer's Iliad as Karpathos (ΟΙ Δ'ΑΡΑ ΝΙΣΥΡΟΝ Τ'ΕΙΧΟΝ ΚΡΑΠΑΘΟΝ ΤΕ ΚΑΣΟΝ ΤΕ).

Despite such a scattered past, the last half-century has been pivotal in charactering the island. A war-ravaged economy sent many a Karpathian to the U.S. eastern seaboard cities. Karpathos today has a significant Greek-American constituency who have returned to their beloved island and invested heavily. As a result, Pigadia and other towns successfully infuse modern elements into a traditional setting. In the mountains north, a world unto itself, residents preserve tradition almost religiously.

Art and Culture

Karpathos is very conservative, both in attitude and culturally. This entails that many arts lost in the rest of Greece, or only shown as part of the usual folklore exhibitions, are alive and well on the island.

The major art forms are music and poetry or a combination of both called mantinades. A mantinada consists of a poem formed with 15 syllable verses to form rhyming couplets. Ethnologists also claim that a simple form of dance called pano horo is an original Karpathian variation of the Sirtos (line dance).

The traditional musical instruments are lauto (lute), lyra (lyre) and Tsambouni (a primitive version of the bagpipe) as in other Dodecanese Islands in different combinations.

Local fine arts are viewed with suspicion by locals who don't understand the foreigners amazement and pilgrimages to exhibitions of local artists.

Known far over the borders of Karpathos are Minás Vlahos and Jannis Hapsis. They have been joined by the Austrian painter and sculptor Jani Jan J. who opened an art school in Arkasa recently.

Other artists “imported” to the island are the British writer Roger Jinkinson (Tales from a Greek Island published in 2005), the American writer and editor Roberta Beach Jacobson and the German writer and photographer Alf B. Meier.