Lime Kilns
Lime kilns were the pre-industrial world’s tools for firing limestone to produce lime. Hikers will encounter this kiln, which when fired would reach incredibly high temperatures inside, on their journey and can examine it up close to see where the limestone was cooked.
Kilns were the primary means of producing lime for agricultural populations in Greece since antiquity. They would be constructed in woodlands or other natural environments, but never seem out of place there. As crucial means of production and social development of Greek society in past times, these kilns can still be encountered, abandoned, throughout the Greek countryside. Lime has been a crucial material with multiple uses throughout Greek history and continues to be today.
To protect their homes from the vibrant Mediterranean summer sunlight, Greeks would wash the outer walls in lime. The white colour was especially effective at reflecting the sun’s rays and helping maintain cool temperatures inside. But lime also found use as a safeguard against microbes and pandemics. And that’s not to mention its aesthetic value, its striking whites imbuing even the most modest settlement with vibrancy.
The lime kiln hikers will encounter on this route functioned periodically. These types of kilns would usually be erected near sources of raw material (in this case firewood and limestone).
The fact that they required firewood to function and thus were erected in or near wooded environments gave them their name, woodland kilns. But kilns could also be adapted to industrial production capacity, and were fired with coal, oil or lignite.