Dating back to early Christian times, the catacombs of Milos are the first big community cemetery of the island. There were initially three big independent underground galleries dug out of volcanic tufa, a relatively soft porous rock. These galleries were linked to small ones. Today they make up a complex, as the three main galleries are interconnected by more recent hallways which were constructed in the 20th century and lead to a rectangular death chamber. Each gallery is of varying width –from 1 m to 5 m – and height. There are also arched niches, arcosolia, containing burials. Many graves were found on the floors of all galleries too.

The actual main entrance to the catacombs has been constructed in the last years. Visitors get into gallery B which is temporarily the only one that is open to the public. In the right side of gallery B, there is a two-storey burial in very good repair. You can also see fragments of a very important inscription written in red capital letters and enclosed in a rectangular frame.

Besides serving as places of burial, the catacombs were also used for worship purposes, as shown by a piece of rock which was found approximately in the middle of gallery B and must have probably functioned as an altar.

The information and the photo were drawn from the webpage of the Chamber of Cyclades.