Cyprus-Forum.com

[kurupetos]

Unique find

ITALIAN ARCHAEOLOGISTS UNEARTH OLDEST TEMPLE IN REGION


EXCLUSIVE By Demetra Molyva

Archaeologists have uncovered what they believe is the most ancient religious site in Cyprus and unique to the Mediterranean

The one of a kind, triangular shaped temple at Pyrgos-Mavroraki, outside Limassol, dates back to around 2,000 BC - beating previous discoveries by a thousand years.

It was unearthed by a team of Italian archaeologists led by Rome-based expert Maria Rosaria-Belgiorno of the Archaeological Mission of the Italian National Council for Research.

“This is the first evidence of religion in Cyprus at the beginning of the second millennium BC,” she told The Cyprus Weekly from Rome.

“The temple is the most ancient found in Cyprus and of a unique triangular shape. The finding sheds new light on the existence of religion on the island, since the oldest temple found in Cyprus before that was Kition and Enkomi, both dating to 1,000 BC,” she added.
The temple is not a rural sanctuary, but part of an urban, industrial settlement.

“We found no statues, although there is evidence that it is a monotheist temple. The most important thing is the altar and the blood channel running on two sides.”

The site is not Aegean-like, but resembles temples in Palestine and of the Canaanite religion, and has links to descriptions in the Bible.

“Among the finds we found stone horns which are more ancient than the consecration horns found in Kouklia, Enkomi, Kition, and Myrthou (Pighades) seven centuries later,” Belgiorno said.

The temple was brought to light during excavations in 2008, south of the industrial complex discovered previously.

The religious purpose of the building is confirmed by the materials found, including four calcarenite horns and bones from sacrificed animals.

The mission’s excavations at Pyrgos-Mavroraki began in 1998, and brought to light a protopalatial architectural unit of 4,000 sq. m of the third millennium BC.

Of particular importance was the discovery of an industrial zone, focusing on the production of olive oil, wine and aromatic essences.

An exhibition entitled “Cyprus, a site 4, 000 years old and experimental archaeology on the olive oil, perfumes, metallurgy and textiles of Pyrgos/ Mavroraki” opens at the Etrusco National Museum in Viterbo, Italy on April 2.

http://www.cyprusweekly.com.cy/default. ... geID=304_1

[kurupetos]

NICOSIA (Reuters) – An Italian archaeologist says she has discovered what is believed to be the oldest site of religious worship in Cyprus, a temple which is about 4,000 years old.

The find at the Pyrgos-Mavroraki site close to the southern city of Limassol predates any other discoveries in Cyprus by about 1,000 years, Italian archaeologist Maria Rosaria Belgiorno said.

"This is the first evidence of religion in Cyprus at the beginning of the second millennium BC," she was quoted as telling the Cyprus Weekly newspaper from Rome.

The Cyprus Antiquities Department said further examination would be required before the find could be verified. "We cannot dismiss the claim but we cannot verify it either," Antiquities Department official Maria Hadjicosti told Reuters.

Belgiorno said she had found the outline of a triangular-shaped temple, comprised of two rooms, on the site. There was a sacrificial altar flanked by a channel on two sides.

"We found no statues, but there is evidence that it is a monotheistic temple," she said. It was probably destroyed in an earthquake and abandoned in 1800 BC.

In ancient religions, triangles typified spiritual gateways or embodied three separate deities.

In the past, the Pyrgos-Mavroraki site has also yielded finds ranging from an ancient perfumery to one of the earliest records of how olive oil was used to fire furnaces.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090327/sc_ ... iquities_1

[kurupetos]

NICOSIA, Cyprus — An Italian archaeologist claimed Friday to have discovered Cyprus' oldest religious site, which she said echoes descriptions in the Bible of temples in ancient Palestine.

Maria Rosaria Belgiorno said the 4,000-year-old triangular temple predates any other found on the east Mediterranean island by a millennium.

"For sure it's the most ancient religious site on the island," she told The Associated Press from her home in Rome. "This confirms that religious worship in Cyprus began much earlier than previously believed."

But authorities on the island say they cannot confirm her claim before further study.

"That the site is dated to around 2,000 B.C. is certain, but the interpretation that it's a temple or a sacred site has yet to be confirmed," Cyprus Antiquities Department official Maria Hadjicosti told state radio.

The 200-sq.-meter (2,150-sq.-foot) building was discovered last year outside Pyrgos, a village near the south coast, where previous digs unearthed a settlement dating to 2,000 B.C. that included a perfumery, winery and a metal workshop.

Belgiorno, who heads an Italian archaeological mission in Cyprus, initially disclosed the find to English-language The Cyprus Weekly.

She said evidence points to a monotheistic temple with a sacrificial altar that resembles Canaanite places of worship described in the Bible.

"The temple has a very peculiar shape for a building, which is very rare."

Belgiorno said a key piece of evidence linking the site to Biblical accounts of temples in ancient Palestine is a pair of 6-meter (20-foot) stone "channels" extending from either side of the altar that allowed sacrificial animals' blood to flow out of the structure.

Other evidence includes a stone water basin, which she said might have been used in the ritual cleansing of the channels.

Belgiorno said the temple was situated across from the industrial area in the heart of the settlement, which she estimates covered 35 hectares (86 acres). Most of the settlement now lies under village homes and holiday villas.

The industrial area was built around a large mill producing olive oil that was used as fuel to fire up the metal workshop and as a perfume base.

Although it is difficult to say with certainty, she said the settlement was home to around 500 people. Their origins are unclear, but they had trade links with ancient Egypt and Palestine, she said.

A major earthquake destroyed the settlement in 1,850 B.C.

The earliest settlements excavated so far on the island date back to around 9000 B.C. Cyprus then saw successive waves of colonization, including Phoenicians, Mycenaean Greeks, Romans and — in the Middle Ages — Franks and Venetians. It was conquered by Ottoman Turks in 1571, and became part of the British Empire in 1878 before winning independence in 1960.

Violence between Cyprus' majority Greek community and the Turkish community broke out shortly after, and the island has been divided along ethnic lines since a Turkish invasion in 1974 — prompted by a failed coup aimed at union with Greece.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,511099,00.html

[Oracle]

This is marvellous stuff!

Cyprus really is the seat of civilisation.

Does anyone have any updates on the 'Lost city of Atlantis' finds, east of Larnaca? Homer's descriptions point to such early civilisations associated with Cyprus. There is obviously more to uncover.

But the monotheistic worship is a true revelation ....

[Antreis]

Extremely interesting articles although the Foxnews article last paragraph is quite wrong.
Thanks for posting.
A.

[Oracle]

Extremely interesting articles although the Foxnews article last paragraph is quite wrong.
Thanks for posting.
A.

Oh yeah! Good observation! ... I skimmed by then.

What a terrible/inaccurate way to describe what actually happened!

[Sotos]

"2,000 BC" "it is a monotheist temple" "has links to descriptions in the Bible"



Cypriots - The Original Christians, 1000s of years before Christ!

[rawk]

Atlantis is not in the Med! Google Earth researchers have found under water traces of a city in the Atlantic.

Atlantis - Atlantic, could be some connection there, I suppose.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcBE19Kor4w

East of Larnaca?

You're having a giraffe!

rawk

[Oracle]

Atlantis is not in the Med! Google Earth researchers have found under water traces of a city in the Atlantic.

Atlantis - Atlantic, could be some connection there, I suppose.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcBE19Kor4w

East of Larnaca?

You're having a giraffe!

rawk

Sorry, I got my Greeks mixed up ... meant Plato instead of Homer ... but Cyprus it is!

The search for Atlantis 'ends at Ayia Napa'

By Fiona Govan
Last Updated: 12:25AM BST 28 Sep 2003

It may be the answer generations of experts on the ancient world have been looking for. New research claims that the fabled ancient civilisation of Atlantis is located close to Cyprus.

After nearly 10 years of research using ocean mapping technology and accounts from ancient texts, an American explorer says he has evidence that Atlantis lies beneath the deep blue waters off the southern tip of the island.

Discovery of Atlantis - The Startling Case for the Island of Cyprus, published last week in America by Origin Press. Mr Sarmast uses maps to show the location of archaeological remains on a sunken strip of land just off the south coast of Cyprus, which he says is Atlantis.

Mr Sarmast said at his home in California last week: "This is going to rewrite the history books. We are set to make the biggest archaeological discovery of all time."

His research, which cost $500,000 (£312,000) and uses data collected by a Russian scientific survey vessel in 1989, was paid for by the Heritage Standard Corporation, an organisation involved in undersea surveys for oil and gas. He now intends to carry out an expedition to explore the sea bed, to find proof of his theory.

Mr Sarmast says the site matches Plato's account of Atlantis, in the dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written in about 400BC. The description is said to be based on the writings of Solon, who recorded the account told to him by the Egyptians in around 600BC.

Whereas many historians believe that Atlantis is the stuff of legend and that Plato's description is an allegory to praise the values of Athenian society, Mr Sarmast takes a more literal view.

"My discovery will vindicate Plato," he said. "Within his dialogues, Plato provides factual clues as to what Atlantis was like. I have matched all but two of the 45 clues with the area around Cyprus. That's either the biggest coincidence in the history of the world or we have found Plato's Atlantis. Plato's account is so detailed that it is possible to make city plans based on his description. These match exactly the antediluvian maps of Cyprus as discovered through oceanographic mapping."

Mr Sarmast says he has identified many of the areas described by Plato, including a rectangular plain, running east to west, containing a metropolis at its centre.

Central to the latest theory is the fact that the Mediterranean basin suffered a catastrophic flood with the destruction of the Gibraltar "dam" that once closed the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic.

This substantiates Plato's claim that an epochal flood "swallowed up" the island of Atlantis leaving only the uninhabited mountainous regions above water, and supports the Biblical story of the flood.

Mr Sarmast believes that it will not be difficult to launch an underwater expedition and that the rewards will be great. "It's only a mile down in warm, calm waters," he said. "Compare that with the Titanic which is two miles down in freezing, treacherous waters. That was explored fully 20 years ago.

"What we have here is a whole city, an ancient civilisation, megalithic sites packed full of artefacts. We can expect to find colossal buildings, bridges, roads, canals and stone temples. With no sunlight, heat, oxygen or wind to degrade its remains, Atlantis will be mummified in the cold waters of the deep sea, frozen in time."

Mr Sarmast's claim about Cyprus is, however, just the latest in a long list of suggested locations for Atlantis, including the Azores, the Sahara desert, Malta, Central America and Antarctica.

Cypriot reaction last week ranged from derision to enthusiastic support.

Dr Despo Pilides, an archaeologist at the Department of Antiquities, said: "Serious archaeologists tend to place the search for Atlantis within the realm of fantasy.

"This latest theory should be taken with a very large pinch of salt. Archaeologists only work with hard evidence. There is no evidence whatsoever to give credence to this hypothesis and we have no intention of investigating it."

But in the kafenios, the coffee houses where men pass the time and debate the issues of the day, it was a different story.

Christos sipped his strong, dark coffee as he contemplated the idea. "Of course it's true," he said. "We are Atlantis, we are the oldest civilisation, we are the Garden of Eden. This is a very good thing for Cyprus. We will be more famous than anywhere else in the world."

The tourist industry agreed. A spokesman for the Cyprus Tourism Organisation said: "I don't think we should be hasty in dismissing this idea. Whether it is true or not it can only be a good thing for us.

"People will want to come and visit what could be part of Atlantis."

British holidaymakers in Ayia Napa were less impressed. "I couldn't care less," said one Briton. "If you're looking for Atlantis, I'll tell you where it is. It's on the left before you get to Larnaca . . . the Atlantis Night Club Cabaret. But get there early if you want a seat - it gets quite full."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -Napa.html

[Simon]

Wasn't that rubbished rawk?

[quote]It was reported in the UK tabloid press on 20 February 2009 that a grid-like imagecould be seen 620 miles off the coast of Africa, near the Canary islands, at a depth of 3.5 miles (5,633 m) on Google Ocean at 31°15′15″N 24°15′30″W / 31.25417°N 24.25833°W / 31.25417; -24.25833. There was speculation that this could be the location of Atlantis;[37] however, a Google spokesman noted that "what users are seeing is an artifact of the data collection process. Bathymetric (sea floor) data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the sea floor. The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data."[38] These lines are strips along which the bottom depth was directly measured by echosounding (sonar) surveys from ships. They show up as lines because the ocean bottom depth as estimated by satellite altimeter data has not been adjusted to fit the direct echosounding depth measurements.[39] The echosounding data were collected along the exact grid-like lines seen in Google Earth 5.0 during cruises concerned with collecting data for research evaluating the possibility for using the Madeira Abyssal Plain as a site for the disposal of radioactive waste[/quote]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis#I ... ntic_Ocean


From what I hear, Santorini is one of the likely places for Atlantis.