The island of Thassos was renowned in antiquity for its good wines and the white marble that was mined there. In the southeastern part of the island, in the district of Alyki, there are many quarries from which marble used to be extracted.Those mines which were by the shore date back to early Christian times and today are under water.The sunken floor of the marble mines was in use as a jetty for bringing craft aground, while holes and stone mooring rings indicate that lifting machinery was used for loading ships with their cargo.