Apokreas Folk Faience Plate Racks and Pewter Mantel Rails in Skyrian Homes

In the cultural anthropology of the Aegean Sea, the interior of the Skyrian home represents an extraordinary testament to the golden age of Greek merchant seafaring. For centuries, the island of Skyros occupied a pivotal geographic position along the maritime trade arteries connecting the Black Sea and Constantinople with Venice, Genoa, Marseille, and Alexandria. Skyrian sea captains and shipowners commanded fleets of stout sailing brigantines (karavia) that dominated regional commerce, while during turbulent periods of conflict, many islanders engaged in sanctioned privateering and corsair raids against Ottoman and European shipping.

When these mariners returned home to their families in the windswept Chora of Skyros, their wealth was not invested in land or banks, which were subject to Ottoman confiscation or inflation. Instead, their mobile capital was converted into luxury prestige goods: precious ceramic tableware, Italian maiolica, Dutch delftware, and hammered pewter chargers. In an isolated island culture where social standing was determined by dowry wealth and ancestral pedigree, these foreign ceramics were never used for mundane daily dining; they were preserved as sacred family heirlooms, mounted prominently upon the whitewashed walls of the home where every visitor could instantly assess the family’s naval prowess and prosperity.

To showcase these ceramic treasures, Skyrian master woodcarvers engineered specialized architectural display furniture known as the piatothiki (plate rack) or pennofori. Crafted from fragrant wild cypress heartwood, the piatothiki is a multi-tiered, wall-mounted shelving unit that combines structural strength with delicate decorative elegance. Unlike conventional European open dressers or bookshelves that store items horizontally, the piatothiki is designed specifically for vertical display.

The shelves are exceptionally narrow—often measuring only 80 to 120 millimeters in depth—to minimize intrusion into the compact room footprint. Along the top face of each shelf, the artisan chisels a continuous, 10-millimeter-deep retaining groove (avlakia). The foot of the ceramic plate rests securely within this groove, leaning back slightly against the whitewashed masonry wall. The vertical side stiles are sculpted with elegant cyma-reversa curves and pierced fretwork brackets, while the crowning pediment (korona) is embellished with openwork rosettes, cross motifs, and scalloped valances. Fastened to the solid stone wall with heavy iron spikes, a large piatothiki could support several hundred kilograms of dense ceramic and metalware across three or four soaring tiers.

The ceramic assemblages found on Skyrian walls constitute an extraordinary cross-section of Mediterranean and Northern European ceramic history. The premier tier of any prestigious collection was occupied by Italian tin-glazed maiolica from the celebrated pottery centers of Faenza, Pesaro, Urbino, and Montelupo, dating from the late 16th to the 18th centuries. These large chargers feature luminous white tin-opacified glazes painted with cobalt-blue, antimony-yellow, and copper-green mythological allegories, biblical narratives, and aristocratic coats of arms.

Alongside the Italian wares stood cobalt-blue Dutch Delftware plates imported via Venetian traders, decorated with chinoiserie pagodas and stylized floral landscapes that mimicked Ming Dynasty porcelain. From the East came Ottoman Iznik and Kütahya fritware bowls, adorned with vivid underglaze sprays of carnations, saz leaves, and deep relief Armenian bole red. Finally, the collection was harmonized with local Skyrian folk pottery—charming, rustic red-clay earthenware produced by island potters in the seaside workshops of Magazia. These local plates, painted with expressive yellow and green slips depicting crowing roosters, maritime brigs, and wild island thyme flowers, celebrated the unpretentious, living soul of Aegean folk art.

Complementing the multi-tiered piatothikes, traditional Skyrian rooms feature continuous horizontal wooden rails, known as baffia, installed at a height of roughly 2.2 meters around the entire perimeter of the room. Positioned high above the door lintels and framing the hood of the whitewashed fireplace (tzaki), the baffia carried the family's collection of heavy metalware—primarily hand-hammered pewter plates (sahani) and tinned copper flagons (bakiria).

The deliberate intermingling of soft grey pewter with glossy ceramic glazes served a sophisticated optical function in pre-electrified interiors. Pewter—an alloy of tin and lead—does not produce the harsh, glaring reflection of polished silver; instead, its hand-hammered surface develops a soft, velvety, charcoal-silver bloom. When evening fell and the open turf or wood fire blazed in the corner tzaki, the flickering firelight struck the angled pewter plates along the baffia rail. The curved metal surfaces operated as soft, wide-angle convex reflectors, bouncing warm, diffused light downward into the room and illuminating the vibrant colors of the adjacent faience plates with an enchanting, golden luminescence that defined the legendary hospitality of the Aegean home.