On Marathon's Kynosoura peninsula

Although I have been to Schinias beach before, I have been rather oblivious both to the rich ecosystem of the National Park and the heterogenous archaeological places of interest in its environs.

My curiosity at looking at the long promontory descenting into the sea was first aroused by its name - Kynosoura (meaning dog's tail in Greek). I thought this was a toponym found on Salamis island only, but obviously ancient Greeks applied the same name to promontories bearing resemblance to a dog's tail.

Searching for historical information on the area, I first looked to Topostext's invaluable resource (https://topostext.org/place/381241FKyn). The site makes a very extensive mention on the ancient military fortifications on the peninsula, referencing J. McCredie's "Fortified Military Camps in Attica", the latter's PhD thesis at Harvard (available online here as a .pdf document: shorturl.at/foMPV).

The thesis, published in 1966, is the only online resource I could find on the fortifications on Kynosoura. It seems to me that no further mention has been made about them in the past 50 years. 

View towards Marathon Bay

With McCredie's resource at hand, I decided to hike along the peninsula, wondering whether the fortifications McCredie mentioned would still be standing and whether the vegetation would allow me to pass through.

McCredie, (whose brief biography can be read here: https://cutt.ly/alSDGUF) seemingly walked along the full lenghth of Kynosoura, and identified three groups of fortifications, all rubble walls at his time. In my hike, I walked along 2/5 of the peninsula, identifiyng the fortifications he mentions along this part of the promontory, although in a somewhat diminished state. I didn't reach the southern end of Kynosoura, where he identifies further fortifications, which are still visible today on Google Maps.

The lines in his overview mark the fortification walls he identified, which are centred at the two northernmost hills of Kynosoura, at the point where the promontory joins the mainland. The wall on the southern hill is the longest, more extensively built and best preserved, both today and at McCredie's time. McCredie saw it standing at the height of 2m at places, but today is hardly over 1m tall. The northern wall on the northern hill is almost unidentifiable. At the south of the same hill, the rubble wall survives, although I could't follow all its length to the sea due to the deep vegetation and the anomalous terrain. 

McCredie's overview

A marked trail leads from the public road at the mainland to the middle between the two hills. After that there is no trail, and you have to guess your way through the bush. At some point the bush becomes rather impenetrable; this is where I stopped and turned back. Another time I may return and try harder to find a way through, although it seems that the best way to proceed would be by following the rocky seafront on the eastern side of Kynosoura.

The location of the walls opposite each other puzzled McCredie, and there is no source to give us a hint of their use. The terrain is inhospitable and the nearby marsh would have made the place even more difficult to bear. 

On the northermost hill, the remains of modern buildings exist, meaning that the rough peninsula was probably habitable in the not so distant past. 

Today the place is very quiet. The all encompassing view to the Marathonas Bay and the National Park is great. The sense of the sea and the buzzling vegetation in Spring make it a great place to be!