A tower with the Greek flag painted on one of its sides, on the rocky hills east of Kavala overlooking the new National Road (“Via Egnatia”) at about the 477th km.

We call it here “Tower of Palia Plyli” which means “Tower of the Old Gate”.
“Palia Pyli” is the current name of the hill and is the translation of the old Turkish name “Eski Kapi”.
We do not know anything about the history of this tower.

Structure, Fortification & Buildings

The dimensions of the tower is 9m✖10.5m. In the interior there are two narrow spaces with vaulted roofs. There are 2 small windows in each side except the north-eastern side, where is the opening of the entrance.

Apparently it was a military guard post. Its purpose must have been to survey the road to Kavala passing at the foot of the hill, but also to control the passages on the hill that one could use to bypass the main road.

A gravure of 1860 by Mary Adelaide Walker depicts Kavala and its fortress showing a high tower in the background. This means that initially the tower could be much higher.

WALKER, Mary Adelaide. Through Macedonia to the Albanian Lakes, London, Chapman and Hall, 1864

On the same elevation, at a distance less than 80m, we find another fortification. It is just a single wall, the Wall of Akontisma. It is not clear if there was a cooperation between these two fortifications. Probably not. The wall is much older and was not in use long before the building of the tower. The name Palia Pyli (Old Gate) of the hill refers to the gate of this old fortification.

Judging from the type of the construction, the tower does not belong to the Byzantine period. According to K.Tsouris (1998), it is probably dated in the 15th or 16th century.

There are 3 other forts in the vicinity on those hills, at a distance 500 to 1500m from the tower! They are part of the defensive system built by the Greek Army around Kavala in 1914, in a period after the Balkan wars when the frontiers with Turkey and Bulgaria had not been finalized.
To give an idea, here is a photograph from one of the 1914 forts (by Andreas Wolff):

Sources