Magnificent Meteora And ‘Suspended In The Air’ Greek Monasteries
|A. Sutherland – AncientPages.com – Meteora, (means in Greek:” raised from the ground, hanging”) and the ancient monasteries built atop the Meteora massif represent a magnificent place that does seem to hang in the sky.
The Meteora massif, located on the northwest edge of the Thessaly Plain near the Pindus Mountains in central Greece, is a sandstone rock formation rising over 600 meters above sea level. The rock owes its unique appearance to beautiful and strange rock pillars and columns of different shapes.
Meteora in Greece. Credit: Adobe Stock – Romy
The process that created the Meteora outcroppings is not precisely explained. Still, it is known that about 60 million years ago, a series of earth movements pushed the seabed upward, forming a high plateau. The colossal rock pillars emerged in the thick layer of sandstone under the influence of the weathering processes.