The city of Ismaros (or Ismara) has been identified by archaeologists with the acropolis located on the hill of Agios Georgios (altitude 461 m.), east of Maroneia. According to Homer, Odysseus attacked the city, in the land of the Cicones, and slaughtered its inhabitants respecting only the priest of Apollo, Maron. From the Acropolis, parts of the sacred precinct and walls - probably of a palace - inside it, various buildings as well as cyclopean masonry walls are preserved. Based on the ceramic finds, the impressed and engraved designs, the acropolis dates to around the 9th-8th BC. century and is identified with the Homeric Ismara. In the 7th century BC a series of colonies of Greeks from the Aegean and Ionia in Asia Minor were founded on the coast of Thrace. The Greeks from Thassos founded Strymi, the Samians the Dikaia and the Chians the Maroneia.
Editor: Niki Kalopaidis