Exploring Pyrgi: The Chios village with painted walls

At the bosom of this medieval village successful southwestern Chios, a young Chinese woman fans herself with accelerated strokes, seeking alleviation from the island’s summertime heat. She is dressed successful a traditional section costume – dense and ornate, contempt the weather – arsenic portion of a travel run sprout designed to beforehand this North Aegean land to her compatriots backmost home.

Just a mates of tables distant successful the shaded main square, two brothers from Turkey mildly assistance their aged grandma into a chair. Behind them, a radical of ten Spanish-speaking visitors from South America stand captivated by their guide, who recounts the centuries-old past of the Church of the Holy Apostles, Pyrgi’s astir iconic monument.

Pyrgi is 1 of the island’s astir visited villages. Its entreaty lies some successful its size – it’s 1 of the largest of the so-called Mastihohoria, the mastic-producing villages of Chios – and successful its designation arsenic a preserved medieval settlement. Yet the village’s top gully is undoubtedly its xysta, the unique technique of decorating gathering façades with monochrome geometric patterns; it’s a improvement recovered obscurity other successful Greece. The infinitesimal visitors step into the maze-like alleys of the aged fortified bosom of the village, cameras and smartphones are instantly raised. 

A spot successful the medieval colony where the walls are covered with xysta – the designs besides look beneath the balconies. [Dimitris Tosidis]

For decades, scholars, filmmakers, journalists and adjacent doctoral researchers person sought to unravel the how, the when and the why of this singular people art, of which the locals are immensely proud. The village’s past stretches backmost centuries. The earliest written notation to Pyrgi dates from 1362, though some sources trace its beingness to the 11th century. In the 14th century, when the Genoese took power of Chios – on with the island’s cultivation accumulation and lucrative trade – they built Pyrgi successful its contiguous form, arsenic a kastrochori, oregon “castle-village,” alongside different mastic-producing settlements such arsenic Mesta, Olympi, Vessa and Kalamoti. (Fifteenth-century Italian maps made enactment of the fortifications.) These fortified outposts served to safeguard the island’s masticha, oregon “white gold,” from pirate raids.

The tall cardinal tower dominated the settlement, from which houses spread outward successful concentric fashion, forming a antiaircraft perimeter. Thick outer walls enclosed the village, creating a stone-built stronghold. This medieval municipality design, which remained intact during the Ottoman play and adjacent aft Chios’ liberation successful 1912, survives to this day. There are nary cars successful the constrictive vaulted alleyways, and the thick-walled stone houses, their level façades pierced lone by small windows, abut 1 different seamlessly – each features dictated by their antiaircraft purpose.

During the 1960s and ’70s, renowned designer Aris Konstantinidis, serving arsenic manager and special advisor to the Greek National Tourism Organization (EOT), recognized the value of Chios’ medieval villages and oversaw studies for their restoration and conservation. The unique decorative façades of Pyrgi – its xysta – began to beryllium formally appreciated arsenic a vital constituent of the island’s taste heritage. However, arsenic the medieval settlements of Chios were lone declared protected practice sites successful the 1960s, successful a determination that introduced strict preservation rules, some houses bash show uncharacteristic small balconies oregon larger windows – architectural features added to the archetypal structures earlier the enactment of these regulations. 

Giannis Benetos creates framed artworks and souvenirs successful his workshop utilizing the aforesaid technique that replicates the wall xysta. [Dimitris Tosidis]

Suspended Between East and West

One of the archetypal architects to study the xysta, Chios-born Maria Xyda, offers a fascinating position connected their origins. “We don’t cognize precisely when they archetypal appeared successful Chios,” she explains. “In Byzantine icons preserved successful Cappadocia, we spot depictions of houses adorned with akin motifs. We besides cognize that, during festivals, it was customary to bent beauteous fabrics and carpets to decorate the homes. It is rather apt that radical present did the same, until astatine some constituent they decided to overgarment the patterns straight connected the walls. In fact, older examples of xysta diagnostic small tassels astatine the base, resembling those recovered connected traditional kilims.”

The technique itself, she adds, is not unique to Chios. “We find decorated façades successful Switzerland, Italy and Spain, accomplished utilizing the aforesaid process, though the themes differ.” In Pyrgi, this creation signifier has reached a level of refinement and symbolism that makes the full village a surviving canvas, where time, representation and craftsmanship are etched successful stone.

Older xysta are dominated by geometric patterns. It is besides said that ochre was primitively used alternatively of white, which prevailed successful the 2nd fractional of the 20th century. [Dimitris Tosidis]

Chios is poised betwixt East and West, and influences connected the land are many; nary 1 tin accidental with certainty precisely where the xysta began oregon who started the practice. In Italy, the word “graffiti“ comes from the verb “graffiare,” meaning “to scratch,” and the patterns there often mimic masonry alternatively than serving a purely decorative function. In Pyrgi, by contrast, the walls are covered with geometric designs – rectangles, half-moons and diamonds – alongside motifs drawn from nature, such arsenic flowers, birds and ornamental flourishes with an unmistakable Eastern flavor. What is definite is that this signifier of people creation reaches backmost countless generations and survives today lone thanks to cognition handed down from maestro to apprentice.

From Generation to Generation

Most of the xysta that 1 encounters while wandering Pyrgi’s constrictive lanes day from the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1934, the façades of the buildings astir the cardinal square were decorated with xysta thanks to the inaugural of Philippos Argenti, who financed the work of craftsmen Nikolaos and Konstantinos Kountouris. The village’s assemblage hallway was adorned successful the mid-1980s by artisans Yiannis and Kostis Pantelakis, while the xysta connected the façade of the Kolombos residence – 1 of Pyrgi’s oldest surviving houses – were restored successful 2000 with backing from a European program. Today, the tradition continues successful caller forms; section creator Giannis Benetos, for example, brings the technique into his workshop, where helium designs xysta connected framed panels and canvases, keeping the creation live connected a much intimate scale.

In Pyrgi, each wall tells a story. Each enactment and signifier is much than decoration; it’s an imprint of memory, a coded connection of resilience and pride. Here, clip is not simply recorded successful books oregon archives; the village itself has go some canvas and chronicle, a spot where past is carved into the very cloth of mundane life.

[Dimitris Tosidis]

Following a household tradition is Michalis Pantelakis, among the fewer remaining craftsmen who still signifier the creation of xysta; arsenic we watch, helium demonstrates the technique. The process begins with a basal furniture of sand, achromatic cement and lime, spread crossed the surface and near to dry. Humidity plays a decisive relation here: without the close atmospheric conditions, the work tin falter. Over this base, a thin overgarment of white lime is applied and, with thing much than a straight borderline and a compass, the geometric designs are laid out. The artisan, patiently working with a fork-like tool, decides which sections to permission white and which to scratch distant to uncover the darker furniture beneath. As the white lime dries successful the sun, it grows brighter, and the opposition betwixt airy and acheronian becomes ever sharper.

Geometry and Ethnomathematics

Not each residents are pleased with the rules that govern this heritage. Pyrgi villagers often lament that the Archaeological Service does not licence caller xysta connected the façades of medieval houses. Parisianthi Valakou, caput of the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Antiquities and Museums Department of the Chios Ephorate of Antiquities, explains: “The purpose is to sphere the integrity of the medieval settlement, so nary alterations are allowed. Xysta tin beryllium added lone to caller buildings, oregon to those with grounds they erstwhile bore them.”

“Of course, the Archaeological Service decides based connected humanities and technological criteria,” Xyda adds. “But successful each village, people creation is besides bound to people’s emotions. For the radical of Pyrgi, xysta are not simply decoration – they are a signifier of expression, portion of their identity.” She notes that Pyrgi’s xysta tin beryllium recovered acold beyond the village itself – successful Haidari, a suburb of Athens where Pyrgiots person settled; and adjacent successful America. Within the village,  xysta decorate structures such arsenic the village stadium, a church, and household tombs successful the section cemetery. For galore locals, these patterns are not conscionable xysta; they are “Pyrgiot motifs” – symbols of individuality and belonging.

A young Chinese mates poses for the camera for a travel bureau run from their location country. [Dimitris Tosidis]

Precision and speed are what impressment most. “The craftsmen of Pyrgi person an bonzer bid of geometry. They grip their worldly with ease, carving retired intricate designs without a single miscalculation,” notes Xyda. This, successful fact, is why mathematician and κοινωνικά anthropologist Haroula Stathopoulou chose to study xysta done the lens of ethnomathematics – the tract that explores however the political, social, and taste conditions of a assemblage signifier the mathematical cognition it develops, and however tradition meets necessity.

“In earlier times, radical created xysta simply to decorate their homes – and possibly due to the fact that successful their fortified colony with fewer windows, κοινωνικά beingness unfolded outdoors, successful the constrictive lanes,” Stathopoulou says. “Today, the tendency to pull visitors, together with its relation successful supporting section identity, ensures that this people creation continues.”

She highlights what she calls “theorem successful practice,” explaining that “the artisan employs indispensable mathematical concepts without ceremonial knowledge. The skill comes from acquisition and apprenticeship. Most craftsmen cannot explicate precisely why they bash it, yet they bash it correctly. The symmetry successful xysta is absolute, some axial and central. We adjacent spot the aureate ratio astatine work; successful galore of the rectangles, the proportionality of the longer to the shorter broadside satisfies its condition. Perhaps this arises instinctively, but the harmony is there.”

Indeed, astir of Pyrgi’s façades aged and caller radiate this consciousness of equilibrium and mathematical order, a quiescent compliance with timeless rules that are inscribed, often unconsciously, connected the wall itself. And it is this harmony – calved of skill, tradition and instinct – that draws visitors from crossed the world to marvel astatine a village where geometry and representation converge, and where striking designs from the past still radiance forth.

This nonfiction appeared successful Greece Is (www.greece-is.com), a Kathimerini publishing initiative.