Kasos (; , ), also Casos, is a Greek island municipality in the Dodecanese. It is part of the regional unit Karpathos-Kasos. The capital of the island is Fri. , its population was 1,223.
Names There are several references to the island in the works of ancient authors, including as Amphe (), Astrabe (), and Achni (). Concerning Kasos (), Samuel Bochart (1674) and Victor Bérard (1902) suggested that it could derive from the Canaanite word kas , and that it is a doublet with Greek Achni (). The island is also known in Italian as Bertarelli, 139 and in Turkish as or ().Osmanlı Yer Adları, Ankara 2017
Geography Kasos lies southwest of Karpathos, and east of Crete. The island lies within the subtropical zone, being at 35ºN latitude. Adjacent to the island is the Strait of Kasos, through which some of the Modified Atlantic Water enters the Sea of Crete.Peter Saundry, C.Michael Hogan & Steve Baum. 2011. Sea of Crete. Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds.M.Pidwirny & C.J.Cleveland. National Council for Science and Environment. Washington DC. Its shape is elliptic and resembles that of Rhodes. The main island has a surface of , being long and across at its widest.Bertarelli, 138 It is very mountainous, with its highest mount being Mt. Prionas, which is high. There is fresh water on the island. Lawrence Durrell is rather disparaging about the island, begrudging it a mere 22 words in a brief comparison to Karpathos, calling it a "smaller, stonier version of the same sort of thing."Lawrence Durrell, The Greek Islands (1978), p.145.
The Florentine monk and geographer Christoforo Buondelmonti, around 1415, explored Karpathos and makes a reference to seeing Kasos in the distance.'Et in conspectu Casso insula est, Venetesque Corachi oppidum prope montem Gomali apparent in alto', Christoforo Buondelmonti, Librum Insularum Archipelagi, edited by Gabriel Rudolf Ludwig von Sinner, Leipzig, 1824, p.71. His map of Karpathos seems to include a schematic view of Kasos to the west. In 1687, the English merchant Bernard Randolph referred to the island as Cassio or Casos, and wrote the following about it:Bernard Randolph (1687), The present state of the islands in the archipelago, or Arches, seas of Constantinople and gulph of Smyrna with the islands of Candia and Rhodes. Oxford Text Archive, http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12024/A70955.
A bona fide early tourist to leave an engaging description of the island's interior and inhabitants was the Orientalist, pioneer of Egyptology, and translator of the Quran, Claude-Étienne Savary; while on his way to Crete in late 1779, bad weather made him remain several days on the island. His account is made more poignant, depicting as it does a harmonious setting just forty years before the Ottoman devastation of 1824.With something of his contemporary the Vicomte de Valmont about him, Savary was much taken by the place... "and the wind must detain us here a long time before I wish it to change..." (Claude-Étienne Savary: Letters on Greece: being a sequel to Letters on Egypt, and containing travels through Rhodes, Crete, and other islands of the Archipelago..., translated into English and published in Dublin in 1788, Letter XVI, pp.119-141). The French naturalist Charles Sigisbert Sonnini, visiting a few years after Savary, at the end of the 18th century, commented on the "very good wine" and "the honey which they gather [being] still, as in ancient times, abundant, and of excellent quality".Travels in Greece and Turkey, undertaken by order of Louis XVI, and with the authority of the Ottoman court, C.S. Sonnini, London, 1801, p.134.
In 1888, the Austro-Polish geologist Gejza Edler Bukowski von Stolzenburg (1858–1937), was on the island to conduct a geological survey. He writes (translated from the German): "A few days were enough to get an overview of the geological construction of this small island..." His results were published in 1890 in Vienna, along with a map.Gejza Edler Bukowski (1890), Der geologische Bau der Insel Kasos : (Mit 1 geologischen Karte.) Aus d. Sitz.-Ber. d. k. Akad. d. Wissensch. in Wien. Mathem.-naturw. Classe; Bd. 98, Abth. 1. Juli 1889, pp. 653-669. The geologist concludes by thanking 'Mr. Elie Manolaki and Andrea Manolakaki for the very friendly hospitality... which I have had with them throughout my stay on Kasos.' (translated from the German).
The Municipality of Kasos (Δήμος Κάσου) includes several uninhabited offshore islands, the largest of which are Armathia and Makronisi. Its total land area is .
The island has five villages, Fri (pronounced like "free", pop. 357), Agia Marina (444), Panagia (34), Poli (80), and Arvanitochori (169). Fri is the capital and home to the island's harbor and Agia Marina is the most populous village. The airport is located close to Fri and is big enough for an ATR 42 to land.
In the early 1950s, the English travel-writer Robert Liddell visited the island for the memorial of the 1824 holocaust, that takes place every June. He wrote that "[t]he best things about Phry are its odd, little name (short for Ophrys), and the magnificent outline of Cárpathos seen in the east."Robert Liddell, Aegean Greece (1954), pp. 207-212.
Climate Kasos has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification: BSh). According to the data of the National Observatory of Athens and the Hellenic National Meteorological Service stations, Kasos records the mildest winters in Greece, with a record low temperature of 2.7 °C (for the period 1989–2026). It is also the second driest area of Greece after Schoinoussa. Kasos falls in 11a hardiness zone.
History From the apparent derivation of the name, it would seem that the island was known to Phoenician traders, who might have sought shelter there, although no evidence has come to light.Svidae Lexicon, pars ΙΙΙ, λήμμα 454, "Κάσιον ρος παρά τ Ε φράτ ..", Ευαγγελίδης - Μιχαηλίδης Νουάρος 1935, 19-20 (see fn 8 in Αγγελική Γιαννικουρή – Φωτεινή Ζερβάκη, ΔΩΕΚΑΝΗΣΙΑΚΑ ΧΡΟΝΙΚΑ 21, 2007, pp.331-354).'From as early as Neolithic times, all three islands must have served as intermediary stations for people who were moving across the Aegean, from Phoenicia and Western Anatolia to Crete and vice versa', Emmanuel Melas, The Islands of Karpathos, Saros and Kasos in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, unpublished PhD thesis, Bedford College, University of London, 1985, p.39. The first known settlements are Minoan and Mycenaean in origin. According to Homer (Iliad, 2.676), Kasos contributed ships toward the Trojan War."And they that held Nisyrus and Crapathus and Casus and Cos, the city of Eurypylus, and the Calydnian isles..." (trans. A.T. Murray, 1924). During Classical Antiquity it closely followed the history of nearby Karpathos. It was a member of the Delian League.
After a short period in the hands of the Knights of St John, Kasos was governed by the Venetian Cornaro family from 1306, before falling to Barbarossa and the Ottomans in 1537. The whereabouts of the Venetian administrative centre are not recorded; there are considerable structural remains in and around the Byzantine area of Panagia, with its picturesque group of early chapels known as "Six Churches" (Έξι Εκκλησίες). In 1912, Frederick W. Hasluck discovered a collection of medieval coins in Smyrna, that are believed to have been concealed on the island of Kasos around 1370; they are now known as the "Kasos Hoard".F.W. Hasluck (1912), "Contributions to the History of Levant Currencies. 1 – A Hoard of Medieval Coins from the Sporades", The Annual of the British School at Athens, vol. 19, pp. 174–181. Julian Baker (2021), Coinage and Money in Medieval Greece 1200-1430, Leiden, p.1497.
Kasos took part in the Greek Revolution and supported the cause with its fleet. In 1824, Mehmet Ali Pasha of Egypt, furious with the Kasiots, dispatched his fleet to the island, where the Egyptian armada plundered the island, killed 500 people and enslaved 2000, an event described as the Kasos massacre.
The island's population recovered as did its economy, still largely based on shipping.Murray's 1895 "Handbook for Travellers", in its short account of the island, adds that "Most of the captains of the Greek steamers in the Levant come from Kaso", (Ch. Wilson (ed.), Handbook for Travellers in Asia Minor, Transcaucasus, Persia, etc., John Murray, London, 1895, p. 376). The introduction of steam ships made Kasos' shipyard (which produced wooden sailing ships) redundant and its economy suffered accordingly. Beginning in the later half of the 19th century, many emigrated from Kasos, initially to Egypt (about 5,000 people), then to Istanbul, Greece, USA and South Africa. By the 1920s, out of about 2,300 houses on the island, only 400 were permanently inhabited.
On 12 May 1912, during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–1912, after the so-called "Battle of Cassos" which took place on 29 January 1912, the island was occupied by the sailors of the Regia Marina ship Regina Elena. With the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, Kasos joined the other islands of the Dodecanese in the Italian possession of the Italian Aegean Islands.
In March 1935 the Greek naval warship Averof evacuated Eleftherios Venizelos from Helatros beach, where today a commemorative bust marks the statesman's failed coup attempt and subsequent exile and death in Paris the following year.
As the Second World War unfolded in the Aegean, in the spring of 1941 a small band of British special operatives based on Crete planned a raid on Kasos to assess the strength of the Italian garrison. On 20 May, the raiding party, including John Pendlebury, and their vessel, H.M.S. Dolphin, an armed caique, got as far as the islet of Elasa, some 50 km east of Kasos, before they were forced to abort their mission by German fighter aircraft. Crete fell to the Germans a few days later.Nicholas Hammond, in J.D.S Pendlebury, S.C. Roberts, T.J. Dunbabin, N. Hammond (1948), John Pendlebury in Crete: comprising his 'Travelling Hints', and his 'First Trip to Eastern Crete' (1928) together with appreciations. In September 1943, after the armistice with the Anglo-Americans, the Italians lost control of the Dodecanese for the rest of the war to Nazi Germany, which already occupied almost all of Greece: although defended by a small Italian garrison, Kasos was lost to the Germans on the 18th of that month, remaining under German occupation until the summer of 1945.Barbara Tomblin (2004, p.311), With Utmost Spirit: Allied Naval Operations in the Mediterranean, 1942-1945.
Dr. Raymond Mills records being the medical officer on Kasos at the end of the war in charge of 3000 Greek and Italian refugees, who had escaped from the German occupation of the three islands of Rhodes, Kos and Leros; these men were repatriated later in 1945.Raymond Mills (1987), 'With Lawrence Durrell on Rhodes, 1945-47' in Twentieth Century Literature Vol. 33/3 (Autumn, 1987), pp. 312-316.
Kasos was ceded by Italy to Greece with the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947. The island formally joined the Kingdom of Greece on 7 March 1948 together with the other Dodecanese islands.
Archaeology The Kasos Archaeological Museum, curated in Fri's original demarcheion, includes material from all periods of the island's history: Prehistoric to Early Christian times; exhibits linked to the 1821 Greek War of Independence, and the Kasos Massacre of 1824; and artefacts related to local history and folklore.