The area, which is included in the two arms, Kalamavki and Panteli, of today’s river Stomios (the ancient Didymos), was occupied by the ancient megapolis of the Eteocretans Praisos, which was one of the most important cities of Eastern Crete.

It was built on three hills and was surrounded by a strong wall, the remains of which are preserved in some places and in fact NE of the big hill, where the seat of the city authorities was. The wall left out the third Altar-Sanctuary as well as the Holy Cave in the location of the Stairs.

After the conquest of Crete by the Dorians in the 12th century BC. the Eteocretans, i.e. the genuine Cretans, retreated to the east of the island, where they preserved their genuine Minoan character, language, religion and the worship of Diktaeus Zeus.

Praisos was in the center of the Sitia peninsula and had ports in the North Sea (Crete) Itia (Siteia) and in the South Sea (Libyan) Stiles, as seen in a resolution of the Praisians, during Macedonian times, concerning fishing and trade in the porphyry shell and the hiring for it of the Stylite navy.

The Ierapytnians, who were of Doric origin, after a long war, defeated the Eteocretans of Praisos, and destroyed their city.

The place seems to have been inhabited since the Neolithic era. In the cave located at Scales, at the confluence of the Kalamavki and Panteli streams, Neolithic and Kamara pottery was found.

In 1884 Federico Halbherr discovered in Praisos the first Eteocretian inscription and found a large number of clay figurines. From the excavations made by the English School of Archaeology, it proved that Praisos was a city of the historical – Greek times.

The most ancient Eteocretan Praisos, the one mentioned by Strabo, existed not far from the current ruins, which was destroyed and the last descendants of the Eteocretans built, together with the Dorian settlers, after the 12th century BC, the new city in the known today location of the ruins. The territory of the “state” of Praisos occupied the entire present-day peninsula of Sitia, which was then called the Eteocretian peninsula, or the peninsula of the Praisians, excluding the country of Itanos.

The polity of the Greek-geometric Praisos was democratic, with the bodies of the councils, the senate and the church of the Municipality. As an autonomous city it minted coins from which many types are known. In most of them Hercules, Zeus, Apollo and Demeter are represented with the word PRAISION.

On the hill of Praisos, a tomb was excavated in 1935, in which a Praisian athlete was buried, along with his prizes, the most characteristic of which were two painted Athenian amphorae from 560 – 500 BC. The athlete seems to have taken part in and won the Panathenaic games.

All the centuries have left their traces in Praisos. The Neolithic, Mycenaean, Geometric, Hellenistic and Venetian eras are represented here. Even the Turks left two fountains in Babels.