Lighthouse Chania

For more than eight centuries the lighthouse of Chania stands at the old port. The tower height is 21 meters, its focal plane 26 meters and its luminescence 7 nautical miles. It is the oldest preserved, not only in Greek coastline but in Mediterranean Sea too, and one of the older in the world.

Lighthouse’s history is connected with port’s history. In 1212 a. C. the Venetians conquered the entire Crete island. Then they decided to build a new town above the ancient Kydonia (the modern Chania town). The port isn’t natural to its total length. Its construction started between 1320-1356 a.C. and continued for the next 200 years, when the lighthouse was built, but in a different form than it’s today. From 1645 to 1830 the Turkish hold the Crete. They use as port Souda instead of Chania, so after years the lighthouse was collapsed from abandonment.

In 1830 the English granted the lighthouse to Egyptians. Then many public works were done, among them the cleaning of the port basin and the breakwater repair. At the same time the lighthouse’s tower was constructed, which is still standing and is founded on the Venetian trapezoid base, on a rock, featured architecture elements connected to local tradition, as that formed after the Venetian occupation and then. According to the valid English "lighthouses list" of 1847 and 1859 the lighthouse was restored -on its Venetian base- and in 1839 operated with new machinery. Its architecture features resemble those of minarets, and that’s why the monument isn’t listed to anyone of typical lighthouses’ towers concerning the cross section. It’s "port lamp" and is consisted only by the tower, without keeper’s house, as the rest supervised lighthouses. The tower is constructed in stone hewn blocks by white sandstone, with width of 60 cm to all of its height. At the top of every department that cross section changes there is a frieze of floor plan, while the departments under the friezes are decorated by relieves. Inside, throughout its height, there is a stone stair, which also works as stiffness helical element.

In 1864 the lighthouse came under the authority of the French Company of Ottoman Lighthouses and operated as enlighten "D class reflector". To the end of the Turkish occupation the eastside stair was built. The perimeter solid stone parapet, the octagonal guardhouse with the small dome are newer constructions. There are also pipes through which sea water flows under the base surface.

The lighthouse at Chania was added to the Greek Lighthouses Network after the union of Crete island to Greece, in 1913. Crete’s lighthouses aren’t mentioned in the reliable Lykoudis lighthouses list of 1914, probably because the resign – receipt procedure from the French Company of Ottoman Lighthouses to the Hellenic Navy wasn’t finished then.

The Chania lighthouse operated until 1933 as port lamp "red constant", but in 1941 the light was destroyed by the Germans and re-operated in 1945. In 1962 the cargo ship "Afovos" crashed on the northwest corner of the lighthouse’s base, which was already partially collapsed, with result the north part of the walls to be detached.