Would I were yet blown about by ever-shifting gales, rather than fixed for wandering Leto's childbed; I had not so bemoaned my desolation. Ah miserable me, how many Greek ships sail by me, desert Delos, once so worshipful: late, but terrible, is Hera's vengeance laid on me thus for Leto's sake

Delos
Epigram by Antipater of Thessalonica
The Greek Anthology

Knowing Delos

Delos photo album / Delos PostCards

History of Delos

The Archeological Museum

Imagine yourself walking on the sacred island of Delos

Delos on Cyclades map
 

Accommodation

Delos is an island-museum, without hotels or rooms; you can not even camp. See hotels, villas & apartments in nearby Mykonos, wherefrom daily journeys to Delos are arranged.

Let Orbit suggest the best options for your trip to Delos

               The complex of buildings of Delos compares with those of Delphi and Olympia. Among Delos' most noted sculptural artifacts are fragments of a colossal Apollo and nine marble lions. Four main groups of ruins are distinguishable on the west coast: the commercial port and small sanctuaries; the religious city of Apollo, a sanctuary; the sanctuaries of Mount Cynthos and the theatre, and the region of the Sacred Lake.

   Behind the Sacred Harbour begins the paved Sacred, or Processional, Way, 13 m wide. To the west stood a sacred precinct, or shrine, and on the east a terrace with three important temples. The Doric temple of Apollo (mid-5th to 3rd century BC) has plain frieze motifs, scant sculptural decoration, and no interior colonnade. Adjoining it is a Doric Athenian temple (425-417 BC); the third is the Porinos Naos. Beyond this complex is a sanctuary, an unusual elongated structure in two sections. At the north end was an altar built of the horns of animal sacrifices.

   To the east was the temple of Dionysus, on the other side a large commercial exchange that had a temple of Aphrodite and Hermes. Behind the commercial harbour were docks and warehouses; behind them lay the private houses of the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, each featuring a court surrounded by columns and many paved with mosaic. The theatre (early 3rd century BC) lay beyond the commercial harbour, on the lower slope of Mount Cynthus; its summit has remains of ancient Cycladic dwellings (3rd millennium BC) and a small precinct of Kynthios Zeus (Cynthian Zeus) and Athena.