Antikyra

Antikyra Αντίκυρα
Municipal unit
Antikyra Location within the regional unit
Coordinates: 38°23′N 22°38′E / 38.383°N 22.633°E / 38.383; 22.633
Country	Greece
Administrative region	Central Greece
Regional unit	Boeotia
Municipality	Distomo-Arachova-Antikyra
Area
• Municipal unit	23.4 km2 (9.0 sq mi)
Population  (2021)[1]
• Municipal unit	1,529
• Municipal unit density	65/km2 (170/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+2 (EET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+3 (EEST)
Vehicle registration	ΒΙ
Website	www.antikyra.gr

Antikyra or Anticyra (Greek: Αντίκυρα) is a port on the west coast of the Gulf of Antikyra named after it. That gulf is a north-coast bay of the Gulf of Corinth. The settlement was made basically on a floor and beach fringing the northeast side of the mountainous Desfina Peninsula. Inscriptional evidence in the region proves that it has been continuous under the same name since classical Greece. Pausanias, an ancient writer, believed that at the beginning of the classical period it had two names, Antikyra and an earlier, Homeric name. Considering that the archaeology from that specific location dates only from the Geometric period, Pausanias' belief about the earlier antiquity of the site is suspect.

However, tombs from Medeon across the gulf date to the Middle Helladic (Middle Bronze Age) period, and the Desfina Peninsula as well as the Pleistos river valley were populated during the Mycenaean Period (Late Bronze Age). Although Antikyra does not appear in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships, which is almost a sine qua non for protohistoric Bronze Age antiquity, the southwest fringe of the Desfina Peninsula is known to have been the Mycenaean port area for settlements of the peninsula. It is considered likely by some that Pausanias' earlier settlement, under whatever name, was located there.

Be that as it may, Antikyra has had a long and continuous history since then, not even being abandoned after total destruction and transportation of all its population, whereas Medeon across the gulf did not even get through the Hellenistic Period. Besides export and import, Antikyra's Its main product has been black and white hellebore, which grow naturally in the area. The ancients used compounds extracted from them widely as purgatives to treat several diseases, but the side effects are severe and toxic, sometimes inducing psychosis. In one historical incident it appears to have been weaponized as a poison. Antikyra's use of their own product gave them a certain reputation among the ancients as wild men. Currently the communities of the gulf have adopted the metals business, notably aluminum, after a plant was constructed beneath Medeon across the gulf.

Antikyra was destroyed and rebuilt during the 4th- and 3rd-century BC wars of Macedonia and Rome and following a 7th-century AD earthquake. During the 14th century, it was held by Catalan mercenaries. Politically it was a primary port of ancient Phocis. in modern times it became a municipality of Boeotia, along with Distomo and Arachova. During the Kallikrates reform of 2011, which sought to decrease governmental substructure by combining municipalities, it was made a unit of the new unified municipality of Distomo-Arachova-Antikyra.