Lime Kiln Ruins

These are the ruins of an old lime kiln. Until the 1950s, the building activity in Kythera was almost exclusively based on local raw materials and lime was produced in the lime kilns of the island. The big pit with the built walls is the “cauldron” of the furnace. Then, they closed the cauldron by building a vaulted room, leaving two or four openings, the “pores”, from which they fed the fire. They loaded all the remaining stones over the dome . The entire load of stone that turned to lime was called “gomari”. A “askela” (Drimia maritime) was placed in the upper part of the furnace, the “hood”, for good luck. The furnace had to fire limestones for at least three days in a row at temperatures above 1000° C and the surrounding vegetation, the “branch”, constituted the fuel material (skinos, prinos, and phrygana). It was a demanding and laborious process and there were skilled craftsmen who were engaged in it, the so-called “kaminades”. Usually they formed small groups of two to five people and shared the workload and revenues from the sale of lime. A good lime kiln could produce more than 30 tons of lime. Locals say that this lime was of better quality than today.