The Development Status and Prospects of a Medieval Settlement in the Eastern Mediterranean: The Case of Mesta, Chios
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The Development Status and Prospects of a Medieval Settlement in the Eastern Mediterranean: The Case of Mesta, Chios George Sidiropoulos & Dimitrios G. Ierapetritis
Received: 11 February 2014 / Accepted: 28 November 2014 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Abstract The present paper treats the diachronic evolution of Mesta, a medieval settlement in Chios island, with the aim to investigate the circumstances under which the urban landscape managed to remain nearly intact until today. Scientists from different disciplines have studied the medieval settlements of Chios; however, very few have focused on the evolution of their urban landscape. This research is based on anthropogeographical and other urban-geographical characteristics of the settlement through the nineteenth and twentieth century, which are recorded with the use of computer-aided cartography (ArcGIS) and intends to (a) study the changes in the urban development of the settlement, (b) provide evidence to justify these changes, (c) study the current institutional framework on the protection and promotion of traditional settlements, (d) examine the initiative taken for the protection and promotion of this historical settlement and (e) introduce further suggestions for the protection, conservation and development of the settlement in modern reality. Keywords Historical geography . Medieval settlements . Urban landscape . East Mediterranean
Introduction Mesta is a local community found at the southwest of Chios, a Greek island of the northeast Aegean Sea, just opposite the Asia Minor coast. The village, which was granted to the Genoese by the Byzantine Empire, was designed and built by the Genoese that lived there from the end of the fourteenth century until the beginning of G. Sidiropoulos (*) Department of Geography, University of the Aegean, University Hill, Mytilene 81100, Greece e-mail: [email protected] D. G. Ierapetritis School of Humanities, Studies in European Civilisation, Hellenic Open University, 3, Bizaniou st., Voula 16673 Attica, Greece e-mail: [email protected]
J Knowl Econ
the fifteenth century. Mesta was 1 out of 21 mastic villages (Mastichochoria), an economic network of communities that focussed on the cultivation of the unique product of mastic, the resin of the mastic tree (Pistacia lentiscus L. var. chia), to which many beneficial properties and uses had already been attributed in antiquity. Historically, the island was handed over from the Genoese to the Ottoman Empire before it was finally annexed to the Greek state. Throughout the aforementioned period, Mesta has preserved its medieval town structure intact, as opposed to the majority of similar small communities located both in Chios and in other parts of Greece. Even nowadays, the village still has the same main activity and the very same town structure that was created by the Genoese in the fifteenth century. The present essay deals with exactly those socio-political circumstances that have allowed preserving the town’s medieval character throughout the year
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