Having experienced 2,600 years of history, Abdera is now a place of culture: with the archaeological site, two museums, the archaeological and the folklore, the American House, which has been converted into a space for cultural events, the restored mill, the patrician houses of past centuries, the Agia Paraskevi Church, the fountain, and the omnipresent patrician atmosphere, it invites visitors to explore
In 654 BC, Greeks from the Ionian Clazomenai founded a colony near the mouth of the Nestos. However, due to the swamps, the bad climate, and Thracian invasions, it did not prosper.
Nestos River https://www.welcometravel.gr/escape-nestos-straits/
Ruins of Abdera https://www.gtp.gr/TDirectoryDetails.asp?id=14516&lng=2
In 545 BC, settlers from Teos settled on the same site and reinforced the remaining small population from Clazeomenai. The Teians defeated the Thracians and founded the famous, densely populated, and rich city. They named it Abdera and created the myth of its founding by Heracles in memory of the prematurely deceased Abderus.
Around the middle of the 4th century BC, historical and natural events, including the silting up of the harbor, forced the Abderites to relocate their city further south to maintain their connection to the sea.
In the first centuries AD, the city fell into complete decay, and the swamps expanded over a large part of the city. At that time, the resettlement of the population to the hill of the ancient Acropolis began and was completed by the time of Constantine the Great. Byzantine Polystylon, as the city has been called since the 6th century, existed throughout the entire Byzantine period.
Constantine the Great
The conquest of Thrace by the Ottoman Turks and piracy forced the inhabitants of Polystylon to relocate to small, scattered settlements near the present-day village. One of these is located in the Palaiochora area and another at Inelia near Veloni. A small settlement also survived in the harbor area until the middle of the 17th century. Until then, its name was Abdera or Polystylon.
Before the beginning of the 18th century, the small settlements were relocated to a new location, and the modern town grew up around the Ag. Paraskevi-Church. At that time, the place name Bouloustra was predominantly used, which is a corruption of the name Polystylon. After the liberation of the region from Xanthi on October 4, 1919, the ancient name Abdera was reintroduced
The settlement of Abdera was established within the ancient Byzantine city of the same name. The main occupation of the inhabitants was tobacco cultivation. The oldest documents mentioning this date from 1784. In the second phase of the settlement, the residential buildings were predominantly peasant houses with verandas and outbuildings, which served agricultural work and the family's livelihood. Around the middle of the 18th century, due to economic development, led by the occupation of tobacco processing, more sophisticated buildings were erected, adopting features of both popular Macedonian architecture and urban architecture, many of which were executed by guilds of Epirote master craftsmen. Their style is a combination of traditional local and neoclassical models, executed using traditional methods and materials. The settlement's two-story old school was also built during the same period. The wealth of the small town is evident in the patrician and tower houses that have survived to this day, as well as in the two fountains decorated with stone reliefs in the tradition of Pelion and Thessaly. In 1886, Abdera had an active population of 910 and maintained a two-class elementary school with 60 students and a kindergarten. The echoes of the community's 19th-century flourishing and prosperity can be seen in the townscape today in the public and private buildings and structures that have been preserved (patrician houses, tower houses, farmhouses, fountains, the old school, the old general store), in the built-up and undeveloped surroundings (ornamental and vegetable gardens), and in the road network.