The temple of Aphrodite, the large wall in the foreground is claimed by the site to originate in the 12th century BC, something I find very very improbable.
Very few sites disappoint me, this was however one of them. It's very difficult to understand what anything once looked like, not to mention the very strange info sign.
Anyway, The Great Cypriot Goddess (later Aphrodite) is claimed to have been worshipped at this site from the 13th century BC while the Phoenicians associated her with Astarte during 9th century BC and onwards. It seems as if everything went well on the site until the 4th century when the city kingdoms on the island was dissolved and the area lost it's religious character.
Mosaic from the 3rd or 4th century AD which can be found in the House of Eustolios in Kourion.
I keep coming back to ancient fish, you can find a quite large collection at this blog (a list is composed in this post or search). I'm however quite sure that it's symbolic here and used as a Christian insignia(other such symbols and even texts can be found in the mosaics).
Another important mosque at Cyprus is the very impressive former cathedral of Saint Sophia. It's amazing how strange it is to enter the building, seeing this very familiar shape in a completely different shell. You can compare it to the Duomo di Orvieto in Etruria (even thou the comparison might be unfair).
There are, of course, other interesting objects and places than the ones from the Bronze Age and classical periods; here you see the Hala Sultan Tekke Mosque, said to be the third most important mosque in the world. The stories has it that this was the place where Muhammed's nurse died.
View from Kourion.
The natural conditions are always important when studying an ancient society. I therefore, even thou we cannot be sure that Cyprus looked the same during the Bronze Age and classical times as it does today, find it interesting to see how harsh the landscape actually is during the late spring - I can only imagine how it is during the later summer months.
Vessels can, of course, also be zoomorphic, as this one here that is in part shaped as a cow.
Bichrome red figure jug, Cypro Archaic I period (750-600 BC).
Vessels from Cyprus are often anthropomorphic or zoomorphic. Here you see vessel with the traits of a woman, rendered in the surface.
Heracles, limestone from Kition, ca 470 BC.
I have previously talked a lot about Heracles and finding another statue of him will always make me happy. What's interesting here, in my opinion, is the cloth he's wearing - it reminds me of the one a Kore carries at the national museum. I would however need to have better knowledge on Cypriot art to draw any valid conclusions considering it.
Squids are a common motif on first Minoan and later Mycenaean pottery. It is fortunate that the way they are painted change with time, thus making them datable -the later they are the more stylized are they. This one can be dated to the 14th century BC.
Plank figure, Red Polished Ware, from Dhenia. Ca 1900 BC (early Bronze Age).
You might remember that I talked about plank figures from Cyprus earlier on this year. The ones I saw back then were all made of stone and I assumed, by some reason, that they were always made in that material - I was obviously in error.
