A he medieval history of the island of Kythera is, like that of many parts of Greece, unclear in most aspects, mainly due to a lack of sources that provide local detail. Most historians have been content to trace the broad outlines of the history of the island and have seen that largely in terms of alternat ing phases of population collapses and slow recoveries2. Not surprisingly, the standard historians of Byzantium make lit tle or no reference to Kythera3 and the main sources are the near contemporary Life ofOsios Theodoros of Kythera^, and a series of chronicles that survive in post-Byzantine recen sions but that seem to preserve some reliable information5. As a result, any attempt to understand local conditions on the island must rely on these narrative sources, other brief mentions, and, increasingly, archaeology. The present paper is an attempt to shed some light on one of the more impor tant events in the history of medieval Kythera, the destruc tion of the capital city (Ayios Demetrios) by the Ottoman

This work was carried out as part of the Australian Paliochora-Kythera Archaeological Survey (APKAS), which is a project of the Aus tralian Archaeological Institute in Athens. I would like to thank Profes sor Alexander Cambitoglou, Director of the Institute, and Dr. Stavros Paspalas, Director of APKAS. The work was carried out with the per mission and cooperation of the 26th Eforeia of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities and the 2nd Eforeia of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Anti quities, whose officials have cooperated with us in every way. I would like to thank Richard MacNeill of Bush Heritage Australia, who orga nized the architectural fieldwork at Sklere in 2003 and provided the im ages shown here as Figs 1-4. I would also like to thank my colleague Robert Davis, who very kindly made the English translation of the Venetian text below. Without their collaboration, and the hard work of many participants in the Australian Paliochora-Kythera Archaeological Survey, this brief contribution would not have been possible.