ABSTRACT
On Chalke there were hermits at least since the mid-6th century AD, as the wall paintings of Ascetario sta Kellia prove, a complex of a cave and a built hermitage, the first layer of which dates, on iconographic and stylistic grounds, from the mid-6th to early 7th centuries. Two basilicas in the northern part of the island, near Kellia, could also have a monastic use. From the 8th century onwards, hermits and monks settled in the mountainous area around Chorio, in chapel-like hermitages and primitive monastic settlements consisting of a chapel and a few stone huts serving as cells.
