Levitha

Levitha is one of the loneliest inhabited islands in the Aegean, a rugged outcrop of about 9.2 square kilometres between Kinaros and Kalymnos, with a coastline that runs to some 34 kilometres despite its small size. It belongs administratively to the municipality of Leros, though it lies far enough offshore that almost nothing about daily life here resembles the rest of the Dodecanese. As of the last count only a handful of people lived there — historically a single family running the island's one taverna, with sheep and a generator standing in for the infrastructure most islands take for granted.

A Rock at the Crossroads of the Aegean

Levitha sits in the gap between Leros in the Dodecanese and Amorgos in the Cyclades, and together with the neighbouring islets of Kinaros, Mavria and Glaros it forms a rough arch across that stretch of open water. Archaeologists working in the area describe the group as lying at the intersection of the main Aegean sailing routes, on the line that once connected Asia Minor with the Cyclades and mainland Greece. The shape of the island reinforces the point: the northern side takes the brunt of the weather, while the deep southern inlets stay sheltered from the prevailing northerly winds that blow through the sailing season.

That southern bay is the reason yachts come at all. It splits into two arms, the western one open for free anchoring and the eastern one fitted with mooring buoys laid and looked after by the resident family. There is no mains electricity and no water supply, no shop and no ferry pier; the household runs on solar panels and a wind turbine, keeps goats, fishes daily and grows what it can in the garden. The taverna above the bay serves whatever the island has produced that day, and mobile reception is patchy enough that you generally have to walk uphill to find it. The 2011 census recorded five permanent residents.

Lebinthos in the Classical Record

Levitha appears in ancient literature under the name Lebinthos. Ovid mentions it in both the Metamorphoses and the Ars Amatoria, in his telling of the Daedalus and Icarus myth, where the pair fly past the island as they escape Crete. Pliny the Elder, Strabo, Pomponius Mela and Stephanus of Byzantium all record it too, as does the Stadiasmus Maris Magni, the Roman-era coastal handbook for sailors — a spread of references that says less about the island's importance than about how hard it was to cross this part of the Aegean without noticing it.

There is evidence on land as well. A Hellenistic tower stands at Pyryalo in the southeastern corner of the island, and on the south coast, at a spot still called Kastro, are the remains of a fort built of large worked blocks that may go back to the 4th century BC. Neither is monumental, but both suggest a place that was watched and held rather than simply sailed past. Levitha's strategic awkwardness resurfaced in the Second World War: on 23 October 1943, during the Dodecanese campaign, the British Long Range Desert Group was ordered to storm the German-held island in a conventional infantry assault. The fighting lasted the best part of two days and ended in disaster, with five men killed, thirty-six taken prisoner and only seven getting off the island.

Five Wrecks and a 400-Kilogram Anchor

The seas around Levitha have kept giving up their history. Between 15 and 29 June 2019, a team from the Greek Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities directed by the archaeologist George Koutsouflakis carried out the first season of an underwater survey here and located five ancient shipwrecks. Their cargoes span a remarkably long period: one vessel went down just before the middle of the 3rd century BC carrying a mixed load of amphorae from Knidos, Kos and Rhodes alongside jars from Phoenicia and Carthage, while other wrecks in the group date from the 2nd century BC through to the 2nd century AD.

The most striking single find was not a wreck at all. From a depth of 45 metres the team raised a granite anchor pole weighing roughly 400 kilograms, most likely of the 6th century BC and reported as the largest stone anchor stock of the Archaic period yet recovered in the Aegean. A stone that size implies a very large ship, which in turn implies serious traffic past a place that today has neither harbour nor road. The survey later widened to take in Kinaros, Mavria and Glaros, continuing the work of mapping how ships actually moved through this corridor.

Calling at Levitha by Sea

There is no scheduled ferry to Levitha and little in the way of infrastructure, so the island survives on organised excursions from Amorgos and Leros and on passing yachts — which is why many gulet cruises in Greece call in here, dropping anchor in one of its sheltered coves for a few quiet hours between the Dodecanese and the Cyclades. Most visits amount to a swim, a walk up one of the goat paths towards the old fortifications, and a long lunch of goat, fish and garden vegetables at the taverna. That is the whole offer, and for many crews crossing between the two island groups it is precisely the point.