ABSTRACT
In the early years of the 21st century, passengers who boarded the ferry Myrtidiotissa that plied the routes which connected the island of Kythera with the southern ports of the Peloponnese, Kastelli on Crete, and the Piraeus would have seen an icon that carried an inscription which identified it as a version of the palladium of the island ,1 the icon of the Panagia Myrtidiotissa. Those who were familiar with
the actual Kytherian icon, or who knew it through photographic reproductions, may well have been surprised by what they saw, since the version on the ship differed only minimally from the myriad of icons of the Virgin known to members of the Orthodox Church, and did not share in the most salient feature of the palladium.
