Nowadays, the Greek Island of Ikaria in the Aegean Sea is a popular tourist destination famous for its sandy beaches, picturesque villages and beautiful natural landscape. ▲
Hundreds of years ago, Ikaria was a prime target for the pirates. To protect themselves from their attacks, the locals started building "anti-pirate" homes deep into the mountains, to make their island look uninhabited from the sea. At one point, the entire population of Ikaria hid itself in rock houses that didn’t attract attention unless you literally walked past them.
Historical records show that pirates caused Ikaria and other islands of the Aegean trouble since the 1st Century BC, but things only got worse with the passing of time. Piracy got so bad that the locals destroyed their own ports to prevent attacks. But that wasn’t enough. The rule then was lax(懒散松懈的), which only encouraged pirates to attack islands like Ikaria, and locals didn’t have many options to deal with the situation. They could either stand their ground and probably die, or leave their ancestral home and move somewhere safer. They chose the third option.
With no real hope of successfully resisting pirates, the people of Ikaria gave up their homes on the coast of the island and moved inward, into the mountains, making it seem like they had left the island entirely. Many moved in stone-built homes, or “anti-pirate houses”, which lacked the comfort of their village houses, but offered perfect camouflage(伪装). To avoid attracting attention, houses would generally have just one level, and they would have no chimney(烟囱), to prevent columns of smoke. Locals would mostly interact at night and avoid using fire or any sources of light, and they didn’t even keep dogs, for fear that their barking would attract unwanted guests.
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