Ios Homer Tomb

Location: Plakoto

The tomb of Homer in Ios was supposedly discovered by Pasch Van Krienen who was a government representative during the Russian Naval Brigade.
Legend has it that it was on the island of Ios where Homer took his last breath and now he lies buried in his grave at Plakoto, at the northernmost part of the island on a hill.  The evidence suggesting that the body of the great epic poet is resting underneath this place is not unassailable, though.

Homer was among the greatest poets in ancient Greek history. He is world-famous thanks to his epic poems, including the Odyssey and the Iliad. 
He supposedly died somewhere between 1100 BC and 900 BC. Some say that his mother, Clymene, was from Ios and that is why he chose to spend his last days there. Some say he died succumbing to a sickness that developed after he had a fall, others that he was unable to solve a riddle posed to him by the locals and died from distress. 

The islanders had little evidence to prove that Homer was truly buried there until a 17th-century archaeologist found some graves in the same region and declared that one of them had an inscription that identified it as Homer's grave. Besides this, there were coins and texts by ancient historians Strabo, Pausanias and Herodotus to give proof to the fact that Homer was in fact buried here.

Since then, the grave has become a major tourist attraction for Ios. The area has also sorts of elegant, carved and engraved headstones. Even then, some have their doubts about whether this truly is Homer's grave as there is no concrete evidence for this.

To get to the grave, you can either take a motorbike or a car from the port or from Chora and make your way up to Pano Kambos, an extremely fertile valley full of vineyards and olive trees and then to Koulida. From there, if you leave the asphalt road and take the path to the left you will be on your way to Plakoto Beach. Just a few meters short of that is the path that will lead you to the ancient ruins of graves that are from the Hellenistic period of which one is supposedly that of Homer's.

Even if Homer is not really buried there, the trip is definitely not a waste. The scenery around the grave is so beautiful that you have to take a moment simply to appreciate it. After visiting the grave, you can also laze around at Plakoto Beach, drive to Agia Theodoti Beach, or visit the admirable 16th Century Church of Agia Theodoti which is the oldest on the island.