Lighthouse in Chania Lighthouse of the old port of Chania
More than 5 centuries stands the lighthouse of the old port of Chania.
The lighthouse has become a mark of recognition of the city around the world.
The history is connected with the history of the harbor. The 1212m.ch. Venetians conquered Crete.
Then they decided to build a new city on the ancient Cydonia (current Chania).
The port is not all natural. Begins to be built between 1320 and 1356m.ch. work continued for the next 200 years when the lighthouse was constructed in a different form than today.
From 1645 until 1830 were still in Crete Turkish conquerors.
They did not use the port of Chania Souda but this. So over the years the lighthouse was destroyed because nobody took care of maintenance.
In 1830 the England gave the island to the Egyptians.
Then there were many public projects.
The lighthouse was rebuilt on its original basis. But the new beacon is different from the old, more like a minaret. It has stairs leading to a balcony with a glass tower.
Surveys conducted recently to replace the lighthouse showed that the base of the lighthouse is Venetian separated from the rest of the lighthouse with a wooden rack.
If we turn back time, if you travel in the evening past the city of Chania, a few centuries back, the Venetian era, we should note that the Chania and the Venetian and Ottoman were quite elaborate trade and shipping. Not only the import and export of products and various species was remarkable.
Similar to the movement of trade was maritime, although a few boats floated on the lack of widely available and safe port.
Was already widely recognized fact that the open bay of Chania, exposed to weather conditions were not very suitable for port. The natural port of Souda even served quite well to the needs.
With the city’s occupation by the Genoese, was confirmed once again the need for this port so that local authorities were forced to begin operations in its manufacture. The Venetian, in 1302, the issue came to the government by the Rector Marino Gradenigo which also received the protasi.
Otan initiated requests for repairs from the bodies of the city, built for the first time the port between 1320 and 1356. A big problem was that this was inappropriate and that the eastern basin has suffered from silting, which created the rainwater and sewage.
Ships came and went and a port was small and relatively shallow and vulnerable to northerly and westerly winds. So often in the reports of officials referred to the work performed, and the need for cleaning and dredging of the main eastern basin. After the revolution of St. Titus in 1363/64 the port was abandoned and used one of Heraklion and Rethymnon one and it had similar problems. In 1551 indicated the dredging of the basin in Chaniotiko port and the construction of walls with battlements along the breakwater, which is founded on a series of reefs that made the port inaccessible to ships.
For the renewal of water and avoiding embankments, created an opening on the breakwater was constructed in the center of the bastion of St. Nicholas, who covered the great distance to the entrance of the harbor, which was protected, in conjunction with the fortress of Bastion. Approximately 1595 – 1601 built by the Venetians, a Lighthouse, founded in rock, which served as a torch open flame (friktorias) and referred to as “light” in floor plan layout of the city of Chania in 1689 of V. Coronelli. But in 1645 the city fell to the Turks after a siege – the conquest of Crete was completed in 1669, as is known, after 25 years of war, the siege of Candia, Heraklion.
The new conquerors showed no special interest in the maintenance of Chania’s harbor, which was left in total abandonment and there was no repair or maintenance, in the eastern basin of the port a remains essentially useless throughout the Ottoman rule
. Over the years the concession of Crete in the Viceroy of Egypt Mehmet Ali (1830-1840), in exchange for services rendered to the Sultan during the Revolution of 1821 in Crete and the Peloponnese, recognized the value of the port and how can help improve the economy of our country.
It is said that Mehmet Ali mandated Mustafa Pasha to cleanse the area of the port of Chania, to repair the breakwater and construct the lighthouse. And indeed made repairs to the breakwater and dredging the basin, work cost (in 1838) 1,146,000 piastres.
Then built and overhang, ie the tower of the lighthouse that exists today and is based on the Venetian trapezoid based on the bedrock, the architectural elements related to local tradition, as formulated by the late Venetian period onwards.
At that time the lighthouse we got the form we know. The tower of the building consists of three different cross sections: the section of the base is octagonal, the middle part is dekaexagono and the third round.
The material base is the same origin and quality of what the Venetians built the fortifications of the city of Chania.
According to the prestigious British “farodeiktes” in 1847 and 1859 the lighthouse was restored – on the basis of the Venetian – and in 1839 opened the new era of technology.
Documented information on the first light machine does not exist as there is not any evidence that shows when he stopped to function as an open flame torch. O new beacon is as already mentioned, different from the original and more like a minaret as to form and to the internal staircase leading to the balcony with the glass tower.
The architectural elements similar to those of minarets, which is why the monument is not ranked in any of the standard towers of the lighthouses in relation to the cross section. Is “lamp port” and consists only of the tower of the lighthouse, but the home of the guards as other unattended lighthouses.
That’s because in a residential area so it was necessary to oversee the operation from an adjoining or near the tower house prison.
However, around the late 19th century, built on the base of the lighthouse tile roof house guards, but was demolished before 1967.O Lighthouse Tower is built in stone hewn blocks of white sandstone. The thickness of masonry is 60 cm measure around the entire height of the tower.
On top of each section of the tower is changing the cross section is equivalent tier floor plan and sections under the terraces are decorated with carved figures.
Throughout the house there is a height scale of stone that serves as a spiral element stiffness. In 1864 the lighthouse came under the jurisdiction of the French company Ottoman Lighthouses and operated light machine “mirror D ‘class.”
At the end of Turkish occupation built the staircase on the east side, ie the entrance of the tower of the lighthouse. The peripheral solid stone parapet, the octagonal outpost with a small dome is newer construction.
They also create conduits through which sea water below the surface of the base of the lighthouse.
The approximate course of large ships in the past was out of the port. Stop “competent” when the weather permitted, and the passengers and cargo were transported by boat to the area in front of a mosque Küçük Hasan, the familiar Giali Hassan. And the browser Rollain notes: “The city of Chania has an artificial port, the megaleiteron artisans port of the three major Cretan cities.
The port is closed by part of the sea by means of a band of rocks a few excel Who being the sea and on board by moloseos extends to breakwater length 377 meters with a bastion in the middle and a tower at the edge of he who serves the lighthouse. he is not the port can accept more than 40 ships of 300 tons. ”
From years of Cretan expands gradually kripidosi the port is completed in recent years. In edksodi old town of Chania on the time it is stated that “.
The city is mostly cobbled and narrow streets, small plateian of Montenegrins kaloumenin (formerly Sandrivani) and slated prokymaian.
The port of Chania is small and relatively shallow accepting de ydasin steamers, small capacity, highly contested and uncertain ROI in northern and western winds. In witness the entry of that left in the eispleonta to land a beacon of white light visible 12 miles remote.”
The Lighthouse Chania s added to the Greek lighthouse network after the Union of Crete with Greece, 1913.Simeionetai that the beacons of Crete are not included in the valid farodeikti Lykoudi of 1914 because obviously would not have completed the delivery process – from receipt French company and the Greek Navy.
The Chaniotikos Lighthouse opened in 1933 as a main port “red stable”, but in 1941 the light of the machine was destroyed by the Germans. which he was later restored and reopened the lighthouse in 1945. In 1962 the cargo ship “Fearless” collided in the northwestern corner of the base of the lighthouse, that part had already collapsed, leading to detach the northern wall.
The lighthouse, our jewel and a landmark of the city, has a height of 21 m with a height of the outbreak from the sea, 26 feet and the light reaches a distance of 7 miles. It is the oldest extant, not only of the Greek coast and the Mediterranean and one of the oldest in the world.
But light does not illuminate only the darkened, antariasmena sea. San heartbeat of our beloved city, flashing lights and our hearts to the showers and storms to pass.
And this lime light that constantly beats mes’to darkness, hope and comfort is not only shipwrecked but the sea and the storm tossed life. And it’s like saying sweet. “Avast heart and knock on my pace. Will dawn clear skies and in your sea..”
* Mrs Zacharenia Simantiraki is Head of the Historical Archive of Crete.
