Dafni

This village which has plenty of water. Is located about 2 km away from Kria and 27 from Sitia on the Stavrohori road. The name certainly comes from the plant (Dafni: laurel or bay tree). It is entered as Dafni with 187 inhabitants in the 1583 Venetian census.

The 60 Turkish families who lived in Daphni belonged to the sect of Αli, adopted son and son-in-law of Mohamet, and were the most fanatical in the whole district, abhorred even by the more orthodox members of their own religion. Christians in the village and any Greeks passing that way underwent the most horrible sufferings. Thus when in 1897 the Christians surrounded the Turks in the mosque of the village, they showed nο clemency and, having killed 130 in the mosque, they later rounded up another 30 who had escaped and were hiding in the cave οn the mountain Kopro Kefala in the Kria district.

From the book “Sitia”, N.Papadakis, Arcaeologist