Location information

  The ancient name of the island was Oinoe, 'Wine island', due to the widespread cultivation of vines. According to the myth, when the women of Limnos rebelled and slaughtered all the men of that island, Ipsipyli, the daughter of King Thoas, in order to save her father, put him in an earthenware jar and dropped it into the sea. The jar was swept along by the waves until it reached the coast of Oinoe (Sikinos) where some fishermen brought it ashore. The union of Thoas with a nymph produced a son named Sikinos from whom the island took its name. From the earliest times until the liberation of Greece from the Turkish yoke, the island saw many conquerors. In the tenth century B. C. the island was settled by lonians. In the Roman and later the Byzantine periods, Sikinos fell into obscurity whilst the continual raids by pirates increasingly sapped the island. There followed Venetians, the Russians for a short period, and then the Turks. The island was united with the rest of Greece in 1830.

This text is cited Feb 2003 from the Development Association 21th Geographical Unit URL below, which contains images.

• http://www.south-kyklades.gr/eng/sik-history.asp (2 img.)