Sifnos Gold and Silver Mines

sufficed to furnish a high quality treasury that was at par with the most splendid found in Delphi.

Somewhere around 525 B.C, Apollo’s lero was built here using the profits from Sifnos’ gold mines. The structure was so glorious that it impressed everyone including the priests who then paid honors to the people of Sifnos for their donation.

One legend has it that when the people of Sifnos began depositing their money in the treasury at Delphi, they asked the oracle if their prosperity would last forever. The oracle then gave them this answer: “When the council-chamber in Siphnos shines white,
And white too is the forehead of the market-place, Then is there heed of a man of foresight to beware, Danger threatens from a wooden host and a scarlet messenger."

Herodotus says that while the islanders could not figure out the meaning of this poem back then, they did at a later time when the Samians arrived and demanded money. When the people of Sifnos refused, the Samians destroyed the island, killing many till they got some money out of the people.

The island’s prosperity supposedly lasted from about 800-500 B.C. After this it seems that something went terribly wrong with these mines. One legend has it that each year the people of Siphnos sent one golden egg to Delphi but one year they sent a fake one which aroused the wrath of Apollo that flooded the mines leaving them barren.

Others say that the Sifnos mines simply got exhausted with time. Either way all we know is that the gold and silver mines eventually ceased to exist. The island did however enjoy relative prosperity for a long time even after the mines were destroyed all the way upto the Byzantine years when it suffered from pirate attacks

Modern excavations have not revealed traces of gold but there are signs of silver and lead mines at Agios Sostis on the east coast. We however do know for a fact that this island has had a glorious past and was at some point of time an envy of other islands.






This picture is provided by www.cycladen.be