Infant Cemetery

South of the Chora, in the Kylindra area, we find the only infant cemetery in the world with 2.758 burials in clay vessels, of mostly new-born babies. During ancient times this was a common method of burying infants, in vessels, pots, jugs, casks, and amphoras, thus probably symbolizing the mother’s womb.

The extremely large number of jar-burials proves that in ancient times Astypalaia was a strategically important junction. It is in fact rumoured that it is there that the infants of the whole Mediterranean were buried.