Meteora Monasteries on Stone Pillars

Meteora Monasteries on Stone Pillars is an original illustration set in Meteora, Thessaly, Greece. It lies in mid-latitudes, where the climate is mediterranean — hot dry summers, wet winters.

Several immense rounded sandstone pillars rise almost vertically above Thessaly's green valley. Compact red-roofed monasteries cling to two flat summits, one reached by a narrow stair cut into the rock, while scattered oak woodland, pale fields and the small town of Kalabaka remain far below beneath a dry blue sky.

Why were monasteries built on the flat tops of nearly inaccessible rock pillars?

Ancient river sediments were cemented into thick rock, then uplift, fracturing and long erosion removed weaker material to leave isolated towers hundreds of metres high. Their small level summits offered monks physical separation, security and a landscape suited to retreat, despite the difficulty of lifting people and supplies. The monasteries therefore do not merely decorate spectacular cliffs: their compact forms, high perches and former hoisting access are direct human responses to the geometry of the eroded pillars.

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