The walls
The *ancient city walls climb up from here towards the theatre, which lies about 300m further up the hill. At few other points are they so beautifully preserved as here. They consist of a double curtain of cut masonry, in-filled very compactly with earth and stone, and with an average thickness of about two metres. In places their architectural history is clear: at the lowest level there are the huge, but meticulously shaped and dressed blocks of late 6th century bc polygonal construction; above them the horizontal, rectangular blocks of the late-5th century bc isodomic masonry, in both marble and gneiss. It is worth recalling that the walls were partially dismantled on two occasions: first, as Herodotus recounts (Histories VI. 46), at the order of Darius in 491 bc, and then again, as Thucydides recounts (Peloponnesian War I. 101) after the Athenian defeat in 463 bc. During the constructions (or re-constructions) many different groups of masons, each working in different ways, had to be employed for such an enormous task, and it is interesting to see as one walks around the long enceinte how methods may change from one stretch of wall to another.
Thasos Island is part of the Northern Aegean Island Group, Greece.