The Elaborate Legacy of Tinos’ Dovecotes

An elaborate dovecote connected the land of Tinos. Credit: Ioannis Psaraftis, CC2/Wikipedia

Greece’s Tinos is famous, among different things, for its dovecotes oregon peristeriones, which are dotted passim the island. They are not conscionable elemental birdhouses, but masterpieces of people creation and humanities monuments that archer the communicative of the island’s economical and societal past.

There are implicit 1,000 of these structures connected Tinos, making the land location to the astir important attraction of dovecotes successful the Cyclades. They are a defining diagnostic of the rugged, verdant valleys, peculiarly noticeable successful areas similar the vale of Tarabados.

Giannis Psaltis, the president of the Tinos Environmental Protection and Reforestation Association “Friends of the Green”, spearheads efforts to support the dovecotes standing.

“In Tinos, we grew up with the dovecotes. When we founded the Association successful 1975, 1 of our archetypal priorities was to instrumentality enactment to prevention them. Fifty years later, we person managed to reconstruct 148 buildings retired of the somewhat much than a thousand, which are scattered crossed the island. Our imagination is to spot the dovecotes travel backmost to life,” helium told Greek regular Kathimerini recently.

Dovecotes connected Tinos were a Venetian presumption symbol

The contented of pigeon breeding was introduced by the Venetians, who controlled Tinos from the 13th to the 18th century. Initially, the close to ain and support these structures was reserved exclusively for the affluent nobility. Consequently, the size and elaborate quality of a dovecote became a potent awesome of its owner’s presumption and fiscal power.

When the Venetians departed, the privilege was extended to section landowners. This spurred a operation roar successful the 18th and 19th centuries, transforming the structures into the decorative monuments we spot today.

While stunning to look at, the dovecotes were indispensable to the island’s cultivation economy. Pigeons provided a invaluable and reliable root of nutrient for the section diet.

“Our ancestors smoked pigeons, enactment them successful ample clay pots with lipid oregon fat, and sent them to Izmir and Constantinople. The dovecotes were a cardinal portion of the economical and societal beingness of the place, ” Psaltis said. He added that pigeons were 1 of the champion foods that the feudal lords of that clip sought to person astatine their Sunday meal.

Perhaps much importantly, the birds’ droppings were prized arsenic the finest earthy fertilizer. This nutrient-rich manure was captious for enriching the island’s cultivated fields and adjacent became an important export product, contributing importantly to Tinos’ prosperity.

To guarantee the birds thrived, the dovecotes were strategically built connected slopes and successful ravines to structure them from the beardown Aegean winds and were ever placed adjacent a reliable h2o source.

Masterpieces of people architecture

What makes the Tinian dovecotes genuinely unsocial is their dazzling architecture and ornamentation. They are typically two-story structures built with section stone, often whitewashed, with the pigeons nesting connected the precocious level and the crushed level utilized for storage.

The exterior facades showcase an unthinkable artistry, often described arsenic “stone embroidery.” Local marble, slate, and schist stone are meticulously arranged into geometric patterns—circles, squares, triangles, and rhomboids—that signifier decorative friezes.

These patterns are not conscionable for show; they make small, protective niches and introduction points wherever the pigeons could remainder and find structure from the elements.

No 2 dovecotes are precisely alike; each is simply a unsocial look of the section craftsman’s accomplishment and the owner’s creativity, leaving a fascinating, beautiful, and lasting bequest imprinted crossed the Tinian countryside.

Related: Tinos: This Unique Greek Island Will Enchant You