haraki

The historical castle F

RAKLOS is built on top of a hill 150 m. high with a perisphery of the base 0f

1100m.

and of the top of 400m. Inside the castle there is a reservoir for water which has a width of

12 m,houses

and stores.Also,there are secret ways underneath the castle which drive in the sea,

propably have been

used from the locals when they were under the sovereignty of foreign forces.

These archaelogical

monuments give the inference that alia ,original name of haraki, was an old

acropolis of Rhodes before the

fortress of the byzantine to be made.

Today,only one gate,the perimetrical walls which are 2 m thick, and some destroyed turrets have

been

left.The castle was occupied, for the first time,on 30th September 1306 by the knights of the

battalion of St.

John of Jerussalem whose commander was the Great Magistrate Folco de la Villaret.

Since then, the

knights kept the most important hostages and Arab and Turkish merchants who

were caught by them

during their raid in eastern Mediterranean in the castle.The hostages were

realeased after they had paid a

large sum of ransom.

In 1445 the castle was besieged by Muhammad the 2nd unsuccesfully.In 1522,Suleiman the Great

besieged the town of Rhodes with 300 ships due to his volition to stop the piracy.When he head that

the

Turkish prince Murat, who was claiming the throne from him,was living in Faraklo he besieged it

with army

and navy.After many hard fights the castle surrendend on 3rd January 1523, 8 days after

the surrender of

the town of Rhodes.Then the invaders ravaged the place,slaughtered knights and

villagers and hung Murat

and his family.Since then the castle has been desrted.The surrounding

settlements

ALIA,ZINOTOU,KAMINARI were ruined and dissapeared and only MALONA exists today.

In the ancient times the settlement ALIA was where HARAKI is today.They have found various

graves of the

Mycenean era,broken columns and a flat marble with names of priests of Poseidon

(Neptune) Ippios

written on it,another one devoted to a man called Agonas and his wife Isiada and

a third one devoted to the

God Dionysos(Vachus) which ,unfortunately has been destroyed.

There was a sugar-mill and the port of Loryma which was a big transportation centre in the ancient

timesand Medieval ages.It is believed that the place had been inhabited for many years before

Christ and a

remarkable civilization had been created.

Haraki was changed into a seaside resort at the beginning of last century.