The first recorded mills of Dimitsana
TT 10 records six mills in Dimitsana, connected with families such as Andropoulos, Papaandropoulos, Manes, Laskaris and Kartopoulos.
Why it matters
The mills show that Dimitsana’s water-powered productive landscape has 15th-century archival roots, long before the better-known gunpowder-mill tradition of the revolutionary period.
The 1461 register records six mills in Dimitsana, each taxed at 50 akçe. The entries connect mill ownership or use with local families and persons including Papa Dimitri Papa Andropulo, Yorgi Kordoro, Papaandropulo, Kondostavla Manes, the widow of Tomayiri Laskari and Todoris Kartopulos.
Kayapınar treats the number of mills as a sign that Dimitsana was not simply a mountain village. Together with later evidence for market taxation, the mills suggest a place where grain from the surrounding area was processed and exchanged.