Paros - St Minas Monastery (Marble Quarries) Moní Áyios Minás

A little way north of the monastery of Áyios Minás in the Maráthi valley (one hour northeast of Parikía) are the quarries which produced the famous Parian marble, worked from the time of the Cycladic culture (third-second millennium B.C.; vases, idols) to the A.D. 15th century. The marble, called Lychnites ("lamp-lit") because it was hewn in underground shafts, was purer and more translucent (up to a thickness of 3.5mm, or just under one-seventh of an inch) than all other types of marble, and was highly prized in antiquity, being used on Delos, at Epidauros and Delphi and in Imperial Rome. The old mine shafts have been preserved. On the west side is the so-called Cave of Pan, one of the entrances to the quarry face, with a figure of a nymph carved from the rock.