Ferekydis’s Cave

N.I. Politis was the first person on record to have expressed the opinion that the cave located near the area of Kyperousa was once the residence of the philosopher Ferekydis. Ferekydis of Syros (580-520 BC) was a theologian poet and philosopher, and is considered to be the inventor of the first sundial. His cosmological theory describes three universal cosmogenic elements: the deities Za, Chrono, and Chtonie.

In the 6th century BC, accounts place Ferekydis on Samos, where he was Pythagoras’s teacher. In the cave where he later lived on Syros, one finds an engraved inscription with erotic content from the same century. The cave is located on a slope which begins just above what is now the island’s garbage dump and landfill. Residents have repeatedly protested, as it is an open dumping site, and the location is subject to very strong winds, located by the sea. The result is that the lightest waste, especially plastic and nylon bags, fly around, contaminating both the sea and the slope where the cave is located, which is covered in plastic waste. Among the bags, exists a particular kind of plant biodiversity composed both of the phryganic species found on the rest of the island, as well as a wide variety of edible weeds, wild bulbous species and plants growing in rock crevices.