Cyprus-Forum.com

[Oracle]

This is a better view. The centre piece is the praying quarters (masjid) for the camel drivers.

Thought you might appreciate this "Monastery" effect ... from a Jew



Mmmm Leo

[denizaksulu]

This is a better view. The centre piece is the praying quarters (masjid) for the camel drivers.

Thought you might appreciate this "Monastery" effect ... from a Jew



Mmmm Leo

Next you will put up 'Jailhouse Rock'. Havent heard Lenny Cohen for years.

[cyfo]

deniz you came in cyprus but you dont come to see me

[denizaksulu]

George, I am sorry my friend. I had so little time. I had not heard from you for a long time. I am coming again, I hope. I will let you know. You are not the only person I let down. Its not like me. Two weeks is such a short time. I am coming in spring. (I hope). August is too hot.

[cyfo]

forgive you my friend may be next time

[zan]

This is a better view. The centre piece is the praying quarters (masjid) for the camel drivers.

Looks awfully much like a Monastery to me ....

The design is obviously Ottoman, which derived from the Seldjukids and the Turkic Sultanates in central Asia (but not Mongolia)

No not quite Ottoman .... here is an example of very early similar architecture (two-tier).




Immediately after the Oecumenical Council of Reconciliation summoned in Serdica in 343 AD, the construction of many new cult building started in the whole of Thrace, among which such of worshipping the memory of martyrs who died for the establishment of the Christianity. One of the most remarkable architectural masterpieces of that early period was the so-called Red Church. Today its ruins stand right in the middle of a field, about 15 km southwest of Plovdiv, near the small town of Perushtitza. Some of the church ruins are quite high, so exact reconstruction of what it used to be like could be easily done. The central and highest part of the church is the four-semi-domed hall, whose huge dome is highly erected. The building?s symmetry is cut by the two additional sections to the north and south ? the northern section had a pool covered with pink marble. This where the christening took place, before the newly baptized Christian could walk into the inside section of the church. The very place where the church was erected was not haphazardly chosen ? the Red Church was deliberately and strategically built close to an existing pagan sanctuary, located in the vicinity of such a huge and rich city as Philippopolis, very near the key roads leading from Thrace to the White Sea and from Constantinople to Western Europe. Most probably its place had been connected to the popular at that time Christian cult to the martyrs ? here must have been kept the relics of some eminent martyr who had died fighting for the establishment of Christianity in these lands. Later on, the initial building was reorganized into a church, while its martyral functions were transferred to the large chapel situated south of the big doorway. It is obvious that once it used to be an imposing in its size church, having elaborately decorated walls and beautiful mosaic floors ? an especially beautiful church, estimated today as one of the masterpieces of early-Christian architecture in Europe. What is most impressive to all the specialists in Ancient and Byzantine Art and Architecture is the beauty of the wall paintings. They place the Red Church side by side with the best samples of the early-Christian paining kept in the Ravena Basilicas (6th-7th century), the Sinai Monasteries (6th-7th century), the St.Dimiter (St.James) Church in Thessaloniki (7th-8th century), and the unique St.Sofia in Istanbul (6th century).
By: Nikolay Sirakov

The two levels with arches seen here too (Nave of San Lorenzo) ... probably 6th Century Roman:

[Oracle]

The Arch is Greek I tell you!

The Arch That Was Grecian For the Road That Was Roman
Friday, Jul. 09, 1965


Excavated evidence long ago convinced most archaeologists that the ancient Greeks knew little about the graceful art of arch building and practiced it less. Greek architects apparently preferred to cover the space between their classic columns with great stone beams called traves; discoveries indicated that the arch came into its own as a triumph of Etruscan and Roman engineering. Now Mario Napoli, superintendent of Excavations for Antiquities in Salerno, has dug up a chiseled arch that he feels sure is genuine Greek.

Napoli's arch, built in the 5th century B.C., at about the same time as the Parthenon, was found in the ruins of Elea, an ancient Greek port in the Magna Graecia area of southern Italy. The city dates from 535 B.C., when roving Ionic Greeks landed there after the Persians had driven them out of Phocaea in Asia Minor. Elea flourished as a trading center, a home of philosophers, and a watering place for wealthy Romans (Brutus took refuge there after he did in Julius Caesar). Though it had acknowledged the rule of Rome, the city remained Greek to the core until it vanished some time around the 8th century A.D.

Last year, after almost five years of systematic excavations of Elea, Napoli unearthed the arch in a high promontory that cut the old city in half. Built of reddish brown stone, measuring 20 ft. 2 in. high, 8 ft. 10 in. wide at the base and 20 ft. deep, the curving stone construction apparently held up an overpass on the road between the two parts of town. After months of careful analysis, Napoli only recently became convinced that it was Greek, and that the settlers who built it must have learned arch making in their former home in Asia Minor. The arch could not have been Etruscan: those artisans never got to the city. It was not Roman: they arrived long after the city was built. Moreover, Greek lettering on a marker at the base invokes the blessing and protection of the Greek god Zeus.

"Greek architecture," says Napoli, "reflects their airy feelings, their groping for space, for sky and sun. The arch simply didn't suit their tastes." But in southern Italy, he reasons, good marble is scarce, and the Greek settlers were forced to rely more upon arches than they had in the past. Napoli now speculates that the Etruscans, who are credited with teaching the Romans about arches, learned arch making from early Greek traders.

[Bananiot]

The police arrested 20 or so right wingers who were giving out leaflets at the military parade hich wrote against BBF and calledfor a holy alliance with Orthodox Russia in order to free Cyprus.

[DT.]

The police arrested 20 or so right wingers who were giving out leaflets at the military parade hich wrote against BBF and calledfor a holy alliance with Orthodox Russia in order to free Cyprus.

they were standing behind me. As far as I know they didn't get arrested. The policeman caught one of the 3 guys by the arm and asked him to go away. The extremist responded by saying ask nicely and I'll go. Policeman told him not to force him to arrest him and that was the end of what I witnessed.

[Bananiot]

According to what I read today, the police arrested 20 of them. They took them to the police station and released them within 3 hours.