Antimilos (; ) is a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

in the

Cyclades The CYCLADES computer network () was a French research network created in the early 1970s. It was one of the pioneering networks experimenting with the concept of packet switching and, unlike the ARPANET, was explicitly designed to facilitate i ...

group, northwest of

Milos Milos or Melos (; , ; ) is a volcanic Greek island in the Aegean Sea, just north of the Sea of Crete. It is the southwestern-most island of the Cyclades group. The ''Venus de Milo'' (now in the Louvre), the ''Poseidon of Melos'' (now in the ...

. Administratively, it is part of the municipality of Milos. Antimilos is an uninhabited mass of

trachyte Trachyte () is an extrusive igneous rock composed mostly of alkali feldspar. It is usually light-colored and aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained), with minor amounts of mafic minerals, and is formed by the rapid cooling of lava (or shallow intrus ...

(671 m height), often called Erimomilos (Desert Milos). It is a volcanic island and the

crater A crater is a landform consisting of a hole or depression (geology), depression on a planetary surface, usually caused either by an object hitting the surface, or by geological activity on the planet. A crater has classically been described ...

is still obvious. Ancient inhabitants transformed the crater to an open rain tank. On the island lives a rare variation of the common

goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a species of Caprinae, goat-antelope that is mostly kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the ...

called ''Capra aegagrus pictus''. It is similar but not the same as the Cretan goat known as " kri-kri" (''Capra aegagrus creticus'').

History

According to an interpretation of Homer's ''

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; ) is one of two major epics of ancient Greek literature attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest surviving works of literature and remains popular with modern audiences. Like the ''Iliad'', the ''Odyssey'' is divi ...

'', it is the island of the sun god

Helios In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Helios (; ; Homeric Greek: ) is the god who personification, personifies the Sun. His name is also Latinized as Helius, and he is often given the epithets Hyperion ("the one above") an ...

, where Odysseus's companions slaughtered the sacred cattle of the sun god. Previously, the island was also known by the name Ephyra () or Ephora (Έφορα, meaning "watchtower"), because one could observe the sea from its highest point over long distances. Settlement in prehistoric times can be assumed due to remains of walls and arrowheads made of obsidian found on the island. Remains of a cistern probably of Roman or early Christian origin have also been found.

References

External links

Official website of Municipality of Mílos
Islands of Greece Cyclades Landforms of Milos (regional unit) Islands of the South Aegean Uninhabited islands of Greece Subduction volcanoes Volcanoes of Greece Volcanoes of the Aegean {{SouthAegean-geo-stub