ICARIA - The Island Where People Live Longer - HISTORY

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The island of Icaria could be the newest of the world's so-called blue zones

— places where residents have unusually long life spans.
   AARP

 
 
 


Author Dan Buettner has traveled the globe visiting
"Blue Zones,
where people tend to live longer and lead healthier lives.

NPR
June 7, 2008
Excerpt:
On AARPMagazine.com
Longevity Quest:
Ikaria, Greece
Weekend Edition
Saturday, May 2, 2009

· Making it to 90 years old is awe-inspiring in much of the world. But on a tiny Greek island in the North Aegean Sea, nonagenarians barely merit a second glance.

The island of Icaria could be the newest of the world's so-called blue zones — places where residents have unusually long life spans.

Dan Buettner has crossed the globe many times over the years in search of blue zones, and he recently teamed up with AARP and National Geographic to study Icaria.

Buettner and a team of demographers work with census data to identify blue zones around the world. They found Icaria had the highest percentage of 90-year-olds anywhere on the planet — nearly 1 out of 3 people make it to their 90s.

Plus, Buettner says, "they have about 20 percent lower rates of cancer, 50 percent lower rates of heart disease and almost no dementia."

Our life spans are about 20 percent dictated by our genes, Buettner says. The rest is lifestyle. People in Icaria live in mountain villages that necessitate activity every day. "They have gardens," he says, for example. "If they go to church, if they go to their friends' house — it always occasions a small walk. But that ends up burning much more calories than going to a gym for 20 minutes a day."

"They also have a diet that's very interesting," Buettner continues. "It's very high in olive oil; it's very high in fruits and vegetables." It's also very high in greens; about 150 kinds of veggies grow wild on the island. "These greens have somewhere around 10 times the level of antioxidants in red wine."

And though they live on an island, Icarians don't eat much fish. Buettner says pirates pushed the culture up in the highlands and villagers couldn't depend on the sea as much as might be expected.

Particularly unusual to this new blue zone are the villagers' drinking habits. Tea drinking, that is. Icarians drink herbal teas every day, morning and night, Buettner says. This seems to be one of their secrets to longer living.

"We had five of these herbal teas sent to Athens and analyzed for their chemical composition," Buettner reports. "We found out that most of them were diuretics."

"It turns out that diuretics actually lower blood pressure," he says, "so when you're chronically lowering blood pressure every day with these herbal teas, that does help explain why there's lower rates of heart disease."

"That's something we haven't seen in Okinawa or Costa Rica or Sardinia or any of the other blue zones," Buettner says.

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Icaria, also spelled Ikaria (Greek: Ικαρία), locally Nikaria or Nicaria (Νικαριά),
ancient name: Doliche (Δολίχη),
is a Greek island 10 nautical miles (19 km) southwest of Samos. It derived its name from Icarus,
the son of Daedalus in Greek mythology, who fell into the sea nearby.


Icaria has been inhabited since at least 7000 B.C. when it was populated by the Neolithic pre-Hellenic
people that Greeks called Pelasgians.

Around 750 B.C., Greeks from Miletus colonized Icaria establishing a settlement in the area of present
day Campos, which they called Oenoe for its wine.

Icaria was absorbed by Samos and became part of Polycrates' sea empire. At this time the temple of
Artemis at Nas, on the northeast corner of the island, was built.

Nas was a sacred spot to the pre-Greek inhabitants of the Aegean, and an important port of the island
in antiquity, the last stop before testing the dangerous seas around Icaria. It was an appropriate place
for sailors to make sacrifices to Artemis, who, among other functions, was a patron of seafarers.


The temple stood in good repair until the middle of the 19th century when it was pillaged by the villagers
of Christos, Raches, for marble for their local church.

In 1939 it was excavated by the Greek archeologist Leon Politis. During the German and Italian occupation
of Icaria in the Second World War many of the artifacts unearthed by Politis disappeared.

Local custom has it that there are still marble statues embedded in the sand off the coast.

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Genoese Era



In the 14th century A.D. Icaria became part of a Genoese Aegean empire. At one stage, during this time, the Icarians actually destroyed their harbours to deter the aggressive visitors.

According to local historians the Icarians, left to their own devices, built seven watchtowers around the coast. As soon as a hostile or unknown sail was seen, the watchers immediately lit a fire and then ran to a cistern that was always filled with water. They pulled out a wooden bung in the bottom, and the water, of course, began to leak out. The garrisons of the other towers had been alerted by the fire to do the same thing at the same time.

Inside each cistern in each castle were identical lines, like those on a measuring jar. Each of these calibrations had a different message attached to it: "pirates attacking", "unknown sail approaching", etc.

When the water level reached the level of the appropriate message, the senders rebunged the cistern and put out the fire, and everyone in the other towers could read off the size and proximity of the danger.

During this time, the Icarians seldom built villages. Each house was remote from its neighbour, had only one door and was barricaded behind high walls. A working chimney could be a giveaway, so they endured smoke-filled rooms which were kept bare of lootable belongings. Tradition promises that everyone slept on the floor and hid their belongings in niches in the walls.

Men and women wore much the same clothes: woven linen skirts for the women, kilts for the males. This lifestyle is said to have procured longevity and also classlessness.

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Ottoman Era


Further information:
Ottoman Greece



The Knights of St. John, who had their base in Rhodes, exerted some control over Icaria until 1521 when the Ottoman Empire incorporated Icaria into its realm. The Icarians hanged the first Turkish tax collector, but somehow managed to escape punishment.

The Turks imposed a very loose administration, not sending any officials to Icaria for several centuries. The best account we have of the island during these years is from the pen of the Bishop J. Georgirnees who in 1677 described the island with 1,000 inhabitants who were the poorest people in the Aegean.

In 1827, during the Greek War of Independence, Icaria broke away from the Ottoman Empire, but was not included in the narrow territory of the original Independent Greece and was forced to accept Turkish rule a few years later.

It remained part of the Ottoman Empire until July 17, 1912 when the Icarians expelled a Turkish garrison and thereby achieved independence.

George Spanos (c.1872 - 1912) of Evdilos, killed in a Turkish ambush on that July 17, is honored as the hero of the Icarian Revolution. His bust, depicting him with bandoliers and defiant rifle in hand, may be seen in the National Resistance Square in Evdilos.

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FLAG OF THE

FREE STATE OF IKARIA








Free State of Icaria
 


Flag of the Free State of Icaria (1912), similar in shape to the Flag of Switzerland.

On July 18, 1912, the Free State of Icaria was declared. The neighboring islands of Fournoi Korseon were also liberated and became part of the Free State. Ioannis Malachias was the only president of the short-lived nation.

For five months, it remained an independent state, with its own armed forces, flag, stamps, and anthem. These five months were difficult times. There were food shortages, the people were without regular transportation and postal service, and they were at risk of becoming part of the Italian Aegean Empire. But in November 1912, after
a delay due to the Balkan Wars, Icaria became part of Greece.





Second World War occupation and starvation



The island suffered tremendous losses in property and lives during the Second World War as the result of
the Italian and then German occupation. There are no exact figures on how many people starved, but, in
the village of Karavostamo alone, over 100 perished from starvation.





Red Rock



The ravages of WW II were followed by those of the Greek Civil War (1945-1947), fought between the
nationalists and the Communists. Subsequently, the Greek government used the island to exile about
13,000 communists.

To this date, many of the islanders have remained sympathetic to communism, and, for this reason, Icaria
is referred to by some as the Kokkino Nisi (Greek: Κόκκινο νησί) (Red Island) or the Kokkinos Vrahos (Greek: Κόκκινος Βράχος) (Red Rock).

In his analysis, "Rebels and Radicals; Icaria 1600-2000," historian Anthony J. Papalas (East Carolina University) examines modern Icaria in the light of such 20th-century questions as poverty, emigration to America, the
nature of the Axis occupation, the rise of Communism, the Civil War and the rightwing reaction to radical post-
war movements.

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NAS - RUINS OF TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS









Modern Era



The quality of life improved greatly after 1960 when the Greek government began to invest in the infrastructure
of the island to assist in the promotion of tourism.

In 2002 Greek authorities captured Icarian-born, Christodoulos Xiros, a member of Revolutionary Organization 17 November.[2][3] A 58-year-old professor and economist, Alexandros Giotopoulos,
was identified as the group's leader and was arrested on the nearby island of Lipsi.





Landmarks
 


Agios Kyrikos, the capital of Icaria in the sixth century B.C.

Landmarks include the ancient temple of Artemis at Nas, the statue of Icarus at Agios Kyrikos, and a number
of beautifully constructed ancient churches.

The most valuable asset of Icaria, are the hot mineral springs in the spa town of Therma, healing from arthritis
to female infertility, and from gout to rheumatism. They had been known since 2000 BC, and nowadays they are surrounded by modern facilities ideal for a combination of healing and family vacations.

These springs are the most radioactive in Europe.





Geography



It is one of the middle islands of the northern Aegean, 255 km² (99 mi²) in area with 102 miles
(160 km) of coastline and a population of 8,312 inhabitants. The topography is a contrast between verdant slopes and barren steep rocks. The island is mountainous for the most part. It is traversed by Aetheras range, whose highest summit is 1,037m.

Most of its villages are nestled in the plains near the coast, with only some of them on the mountains. Icaria has
a tradition in the production of strong red wine.

Many parts of the island, especially the ravines, are covered in large bushes, making the landscape lush with green. Aside from domestic and domesticated species (small goat herds make their presence known with their bells, disturbing the serenity of the island) there are a number of small wild animals to be found, such as martens, otters, jumping spiders and toads.

Icaria exhibits a typical Mediterranean climate.




RETRIEVED FROM:

wikipedia.org

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THIS IS WORTH CLICKING ON JUST FOR THE MUSIC.

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http://www.agiasofia.com/islands/ikaria.html

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RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS AT NAS

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     AGIOS KIRYKOS

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                                       STATUE OF ICARUS

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                          THERMA

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              AGIA IRINI KAMPOS

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