Dodecanese Islands

Dodecanese are a group of 15 larger plus 150 smaller Greekislands in the southeastern Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Turkey'sAnatolia, of which 26 are inhabited. This island group generally defines the eastern limit of the Sea of Crete.^[1] They belong to the wider Southern Sporades island group.Rhodes has been the area's dominant island since antiquity. Of the others, Kos and Patmos are historically the more important; the remaining twelve are Agathonisi, Astypalaia, Halki, Kalymnos, Karpathos, Kasos, Leipsoi, Leros, Nisyros, Symi, Tilos, and Kastellorizo. Other islands in the chain include Alimia, Arkoi, Farmakonisi, Gyali, Kinaros, Levitha, Marathos, Nimos, Pserimos, Saria, Strongyli and Syrna.

Pre-history and the Archaic period

The Dodecanese have been inhabited since prehistoric times. In the Neopalatial period on Crete, the islands were heavily Minoanized (contact beginning in the second millennium BC). Following the downfall of the Minoans, the islands were ruled by the Mycenaean Greeks from circa 1400 BC, until the arrival of the Dorians circa 1100 BC. It is in the Dorian period that they began to prosper as an independent entity, developing a thriving economy and culture through the following centuries. By the early Archaic period Rhodes and Kos emerged as the major islands in the group, and in the 6th century BC the Dorians founded three major cities on Rhodes (Lindos, Kameiros and Ialyssos). Together with the island of Kos and the cities of Knidos and Halicarnassos on the mainland of Asia Minor, these madeup the Dorian Hexapolis.

some pictures of islands

Astypalaia island

Rhodes island

Kos Island

Kastelorizo Island

Karpathos Island