Delos – Virtual Tour

The island of Delos near Mykonos is one of the most important mythological, historical, and archaeological sites in Greece. Excavations on the island are ongoing, and many of the artifacts found are on display at the Archaeological Museum of Delos.

Delos was an Ancient Greek holy sanctuary for nearly a one thousand before Greek mythology made it the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis.

Ancient stone huts found on the island indicate that it has been inhabited since the 3,000 BC. By the time of the Odyssey, the island was already famous, and between 900 BCE and 100 CE, Delos was a major cult center.

Delos is historically crucial because, after the Persian Wars, the island became the meeting-place for the Delian League, founded in 478 BCE. The League’s common defense treasury was kept in Delos until 454 BCE when Pericles removed it to Athens.

Due to the inadequate natural sources of food and water, and volatile history of invasion by great powers, Delos ended up with no indigenous, self-supporting community of its own. As a result, in later times it became uninhabited.