Mastic trees, medieval villages, and the island Homer may have called home
Chios produces 80% of the world's mastic — a resin from Pistacia lentiscus trees that has been harvested here since antiquity and flavours everything from liqueur to ice cream, chewing gum to cosmetics. The southern Mastichochoria (Mastic Villages) are unique in Greece: fortified Byzantine and Genoese settlements with geometric painted facades, narrow lanes designed to confuse pirates, and the scent of resin in the summer air. Homer is traditionally associated with Chios — a rock near the east coast village of Daskalopetra is still called the 'Teacher's Rock' where he supposedly taught.
Chios was a major commercial power in antiquity and a key Genoese trading post from 1346 to 1566, when the Ottoman Empire captured it. The island's mastic villages were specifically protected by the Ottomans because mastic was prized in Constantinople for chewing gum, medicine, and varnish — a rare case of economic value saving an entire culture from destruction. The 1822 Chios massacre — in which Ottoman forces killed or enslaved the majority of the island's population — was depicted by Eugène Delacroix in his famous painting and caused international outrage, accelerating European support fo…