Afisia

Physia, Acanthus, Aphousia, Aphisia, Afisia,  (today Avsa Adasi)

This complex of the four islands of Propontis (Prokonnisos or Marmaras, Aloni or Pasalimani, Afisia and Koutali) from antiquity formed a single whole, a city-state, an administrative province, an ecclesiastical province, a cultural entity and a genealogical tree.

Today’s inhabitants continue to call it by its name a little corrupt, Avsa adasi (Avsa island), a name that from antiquity most people found difficult to pronounce and write. In Byzantine texts we find her as Afousia, but her ancient name remains a mystery, although Ofioussa is arbitrarily attributed to her in the bibliography. It is more probable that it was Nature according to Diogenes from Cyzicus (4th century BC), but on the island stripped of trees it may have been better suited to the name Akanthos, which was probably given to it by the Romans according to Pliny the Elder (1st century AD). .). Its inhabitants, however, preferred the infamous name Afyssia (“the place without nature”), with “y” which seems to be its correct spelling. But with “h” they used to write it and with “h” it was written on the seal of the community. This is how they handed it over to us and this is how we kept it.

Two villages perched on it and by the beginning of the 20th century, Muslims and Christians had divided the island and lived together peacefully for more than five centuries. To the west the village of Afissia and to the east Araplar, a name probably given to it by the origin of its inhabitants or there was the place where the Arabs washed up, when their fleet sank in the area leaving a failed attempt to occupy Constantinople. 1500 Christians and 700 Muslims united their destinies in a beautiful life despite the difficulties… All this of course until 1914 when everything changed and people went crazy, all that we will see unfolding through the stories of the objects of our Historical Folklore Museum, the beautiful life but also the ugly one, not to cultivate hatred but to know, not to repeat it…