THE SANCTUARY

The most important archeological site of Kalymnos is the sanctuary of Delion or Dali Apollo, next to the current settlement of Chora.

The sanctuary was the political and religious center of ancient Kalymnos and included buildings of worship and public character, which were erected between the 4th and 3rd c. BC Plenty of finds, inscriptions, bases of statues, fragments of vases, figurines testify to the continuous use of space as a center of worship. Apart from the temple of Apollo, there was also a temple of Asclepius. However, in addition to the religious buildings, there was a high school, a boulevard and a theater.

A few years ago, many members of a broken statue were found in a deposit due to the destruction of the sanctuary in the first Christian centuries.

According to archeological findings, the cultic use of the area begins at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC and reaches the Early Christian era, when two large Christian churches were erected on the site, the Christ of Jerusalem and the Hagia Sophia.