Kleides or Klides or Klidhes or Kleidhes ( grc, Κλεῖδες and Κληῖδες), meaning keys in

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

,Greek Anthology, 7.738
/ref> is a group of small rocky uninhabited islands at the north of

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...

.The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites Richard Stillwell, William L. MacDonald, Marian Holland McAllister, Stillwell, Richard, MacDonald, William L., McAlister, Marian Holland, Ed., OLYMPOS Cyprus
/ref> Some ancient writers called them the "edge of Cyprus" (ἄκρα τῆς Κύπρου).Hesychii Alexandrini, Lexicon, Volume 2, p.490
/ref> Strabo writes that the Kleides were two isles lying off Cyprus opposite the eastern parts of the island, which are seven hundred

stadia Stadia may refer to: * One of the plurals of stadium, along with "stadiums" * The plural of stadion, an ancient Greek unit of distance, which equals to 600 Greek feet (''podes''). * Stadia (Caria), a town of ancient Caria, now in Turkey * Stadi ...

distant from the Pyramos river.

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...

, writes that they were four islands. In reality the islets are six, but the three can considered more like rocks in the sea than islets. The islands are also mentioned by the

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importance ...

in his work

Geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, an ...

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...

in his work Histories and

Hesychius of Alexandria Hesychius of Alexandria ( grc, Ἡσύχιος ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς, Hēsýchios ho Alexandreús, lit=Hesychios the Alexandrian) was a Greek grammarian who, probably in the 5th or 6th century AD,E. Dickey, Ancient Greek Scholarship (2007 ...

in his lexicon. A poem in Greek Anthology is also mentioning the islands. Some writers, such as Agathemenos and Hesychios named Kleides also the cape itself.

Florio Bustron Florio Bustron (1500s - post-1568, perhaps 1570), was a 16th century administrator, jurist and historian. Florio became a prominent administrative figure when Cyprus was under Venetian rule. He came from a family possibly of Syrian origin, with ...

(1550 - 1570) wrote about them in his work ''Chronique de l'Île de Chypre de Florio Bustron''. Stefano Lusignan wrote about the Kleides islands in his work ''Description de toute l'isle de Cypre'' published in 1580.

David George Hogarth David George Hogarth (23 May 1862 – 6 November 1927), also known as D. G. Hogarth, was a British archaeologist and scholar associated with T. E. Lawrence and Arthur Evans. He was Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford from 1909 to 1927. Hog ...

also mention the islands in his work ''Devia Cypria'' which was published in 1889.

Franz Felix Adalbert Kuhn Franz Felix Adalbert Kuhn (19 November 1812 – 5 May 1881) was a German philologist and folklorist. Kuhn was born in Königsberg in Brandenburg's Neumark region. From 1841 he was connected with the Köllnisches Gymnasium at Berlin, of whic ...

(1812 - 1881) in the Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der Indogermanischen SprachenZeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der indogermanischen Sprachen, Band 9, 1860, p.292
/ref> During the British occupation of Cyprus, a lighthouse was built on one of the islets.

References

{{Cyprus topics Mediterranean islands Islands of Cyprus