Mount Athos

The isthmus was famous for the canal (3,950 feet in length) which Xerxes had dug across it, in order to avoid the perilous turning of the limestone peak immemorially known as Mount Athos, in which the small peninsula ends, and which rises to a height of some 6,000 feet.

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 2: Assizes-Browne 1840-1916 1913

The highest summit of this rocky pile was called Mount Athos in ancient times, and is so marked upon the map.

Xerxes Makers of History Jacob Abbott 1841

An unavoidable point about Mount Athos, perhaps the chief point, is the way in which, as a place, it operates on you when you are there.

A Fossil With Flesh Nicholas Shakespeare 2011

She describes her book as the story of Mount Athos "in the geographical imagination."

A Fossil With Flesh Nicholas Shakespeare 2011

Under current Greek law, a woman caught on Mount Athos faces an automatic prison sentence of up to a year.

A Fossil With Flesh Nicholas Shakespeare 2011

Yet Mount Athos is more famous for being an all-male enclave.

A Fossil With Flesh Nicholas Shakespeare 2011

Only by going to Mount Athos did Bruce Chatwin realize: "There must be a God."

A Fossil With Flesh Nicholas Shakespeare 2011

It requires more than faith, though, to write with vigor and perception about Mount Athos without having set foot on the place; and it is hard to see what new or unique perspective Ms. della Dora brings to her subject.

A Fossil With Flesh Nicholas Shakespeare 2011

Mount Athos, literally "holy mountain," is a 36-mile finger of granite and schist culminating in a 6,670-foot peak of white crystalline limestone that is visible 100 miles away.

A Fossil With Flesh Nicholas Shakespeare 2011

Today, Mount Athos is home to some 1,800 monks living in 20 monasteries and outlying hermitages.

A Fossil With Flesh Nicholas Shakespeare 2011