Amathous

French Archaeological Mission at Amathous (dir. Anna Cannavò)

Alexandre Rabot

Vase d'Amathonte (Luigi Mayer)

 Engraving  by  Luigi Mayer  (late 18th century) showing the large limestone vase in place at the sanctuary of Aphrodite on the top of the acropolis of Amathous. The vase was acquired for France and transported to the Louvre in 1865; a copy is now in its place. The top of the acropolis looks greener and more wooded than it is today  (ȼ) .

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Sites of Amathous

Amathous was one of the Iron Age kingdoms of Cyprus (11th - 4th century BC), and one of the main cities of the island, seat of a bishopric. Established at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC on the southern coast of the island, the settlement developed around an acropolis, about 80 m high. Its urban centre, adorned with several monuments from the Hellenistic period onwards, was filled with basilicas in the Late Antique period, but was definitively abandoned in the 7th century AD.

Many civilisations, with their own languages and writings, have left written evidence in Amathous and its wider area. As early as the 18th century, scholars and amateurs travelled through the region in search of antiquities; in the 20th century, these ventures gave way to systematic and scientific studies.

By means of inscriptions discovered at different places on the site, in a variety of languages and scripts, we propose a journey of the ancient city, its monuments and its history.

1. The first centuries of the town: Phoenicians, (Eteo)cypriots and others

The establishment of Amathous remains poorly known and not precisely dated. The Ancients (Theopompus) attributed the foundation of the town to the Cypriot hero Kinyras, in the aftermath of the Trojan War. According to some of them (Pseudo-Scylax), the inhabitants of Amathous were "autochthonous", while the other towns in Cyprus, were populated by Greeks or Phoenicians.

Modern scholars have christened these autochthonous Eteocypriots (from Greek eteos: true, authentic), and have identified their language, which defies to this day any interpretation; it is written in the local syllabary (used in Cyprus also to transcribe Greek).

According to some scholars, the Phoenicians were responsible for the foundation of Amathous, which was one of their colonies. Called Qarthadasht ("new town", in Phoenician: hence the name of Cartago of Africa, and many other Phoenician colonies), it would be mentioned with this name in the very first historical sources available.

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Dedications by the «Governor of Qarthadahst» (CIS I 5)

 Eight fragments of two bronze bowls  baring almost the same inscription, a  dedication in Phoenician by the "Governor of Qarthadasht" to the god Baal, of Lebanon . The objects, dating from the second half of the 8th century BC, were probably found in the locality named  Moutti Sinoas , in the countryside of Amathous, in the 19th century. They are now in the collection of the Cabinet des Médailles at the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Great vase of Amathous (Musée du Louvre)

This  colossal limestone vase  was visible on the top of the acropolis when it was removed and transported to Paris in 1865; more than a hundred years later was noticed  a fragmentary inscription, syllabic, in Eteocyprio t, engraved on one of the handles. A second fragmentary vase of the same type was brought to light during the excavations of the sanctuary.

Great vase of Amathus

Inscribed sherds from the West Terrace

 Several inscribed sherds  were found, together with many terracotta figurines and (local and imported) pottery, in a deposit at the foot of an imposing terrace wall on the west side of the acropolis. This material possibly comes from the royal palace, or from a nearby place of worship. The sherds are inscribed in syllabary and Eteocypriot, and date from the Archaic period.

The oldest local inscription in Greek alphabet

On this fragment of local pottery, a painted inscription probably gives information on the price of the vase. It is  the oldest inscription in the Greek alphabet locally in Amathous , and it comes from a palatial context (late-Archaic deposit near the North wall).

Cup of Amasis

The luxury tableware, often imported from Greece, found in the palace of Amathous shows the refined taste of the kings who owned it. Under the foot of an  Attic cup found near the North wall  but coming from the palace, there is the signature of the famous potter Amasis, who was active in Athens in the second half of the 6th century BC.

Further readings

Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum I, 1881,  text  and  illustrations 

2. The kingdom of Amathous

During the Classical period (5th-4th centuries BC), the kings of Amathous, as is the case for Salamis, Kition or Paphos, were subject to the Great King of Persia, but they retained a large degree of autonomy: proof of this is the fact that they were allowed to mint their own coin. In the case of Amathous, the iconography is very stable (protome and head of lions), and the syllabic legends record the names of the kings.

The elites, scarcely visible within the urban space (where the only residential buildings excavated so far belong to the royal palace), have left more traces in the necropolis: built tombs, sumptuous anthropoid sarcophagi, and long inscriptions in Eteocypriot.

The last king of Amathous, Androkles, is known to us for his innovations in the direction of a growing Hellenisation, but also for the safeguarding of the Eteocypriot heritage: in his dedications to the Great Goddess Kypria, honoured in the sanctuary on the top of the acropolis, he uses the Greek alphabet and language alongside the syllabic Eteocypriot, and he assimilates for the first time the goddess to the Greek Aphrodite.

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Coins of Amathous (Lysandros)

The  coins of the kings of Amathous  often carry legends, syllabic, indicating the name of the king to the genitive. These legends are always in Greek, except for king  Pyrwos  (early 4th century BC), who uses Eteocypriot.

Coins of Amathous (Rhoikos)

Anthropoid sarcophagus (Tomb 256)

Anthropoid sarcophagi, belonging to the Phoenician tradition, were particularly popular in Kition and Amathous during the Classical period. Some of them are sculpted in Greek marble and sometimes painted. The built tomb in which this  sarcophagus  was discovered (tomb 256 of the western necropolis) is preserved and still visible  in the car park of a building  on the seafront.

Eteocypriot inscriptions at the Louvre

Discovered in a tomb at the end of the 19th century by  Paul Perdrizet , this  large lintel  bears two inscriptions in Eteocypriot, where several Greek anthroponyms can be recognised.  Recent new readings  have improved our knowledge of these texts, which are among the longest known in this language.

Inscriptions of Androkles

We do not know the coinage of the last king of Amathous, Androkles, but  two of his dedications , bilingual (in Greek and Eteocypriot) and digraph (in syllabary and Greek alphabet) were discovered in the sanctuary of the Great Goddess. He also offered crowns to the Apollo of Delos.

Further readings

 Anna Cannavò , " Évolution historique des marqueurs et des cultes funéraires amathousiens. Quelques pistes de réflexion ", in  Sandrine Huber  et al., Constituer la tombe, honorer les défunts en Méditerranée hellénistique et romaine, Études alexandrines 46, 2018, pp. 255-277

3. Amathous under the Lagids

The a gora 

With the transition to the Hellenistic period, the kingdoms of Cyprus ceased to exist. The Lagids of Egypt took control of the island after a short Antigonid domination (between the end of the 4th and the first years of the 3rd century). Amathous, which had played a strategically important role for the Antigonids, hosted, during the 3rd century, many mercenaries in the service of the Lagids: their presence is documented by several inscribed and/or painted funerary stelae.

The centre of the urban life moved from the heights of the acropolis (sanctuary, royal palace) to the lower town, where a Greek-style agora was gradually built and embellished. Several dedications, but also exceptional administrative documents (a cadastral inscription) were found in this area. The cult of the Great Goddess Aphrodite continues on the top of the acropolis, through the addition of new divine representations (Arsinoe, Isis) illustrating, as the old ones, the same divine figure.

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Hellenistic stelae in the British Museum (stele of a Naxian)

The stelae from Amathous in the British Museum were discovered during the  British excavations  in the necropolis (late 19th century). The typology of the monuments and the use of the Greek alphabet indicate the presence of foreign people, mostly soldiers in the pay of the Lagids.

Hellenistic stelae in the British Museum (painted stelae)

Altar of Arsinoe from the agora

This  altar  is part of a series of dedications to Arsinoe discovered at Amathous. Two of them were found close to the agora, where a sanctuary dedicated to the Lagid queen was probably located.

Cadastral inscription from the agora

Dated from the middle of the 2nd century BC, this  document , of an administrative nature, records several place names from the Amathousian countryside: some of them find an echo in contemporary toponymy, others have a non-Greek or even «Eteocypriot» character.

Aphrodite-Isis (dedication from the sanctuary)

In this  inscription , composed of two fragments (found respectively in 1977 and 1986 in the sanctuary of the acropolis), Aphrodite is assimilated with Isis; the close association of the two deities is also suggested by several Hellenistic terracotta figurines discovered close to the middle fortification wall of the acropolis.

© Ph. Collet /  EFA 

Aphrodite-Isis (Hellenistic terracotta figurine)

© S. Hartmann /  EFA 

Dedication to the Lagids kings from the south-western area of the agora

A  new dedication to the Lagids kings  was discovered in 2015, reused in a Roman wall in the south-western area of the agora. Like the dedications to Arsinoe, it was certainly originally located into a nearby dynastic place of worship.

Further readings

4. The Roman period and its cults

The  North wall 

Within a vast neighborhood leaning against the northern rampart, several discoveries document the Amathousian cults during the imperial period: a "sanctuary within the steles" was restored in 79/80 by proconsul Lucius Bruttius Maximus, consecrated to Titus and Aphrodite (a beautiful marble head of the goddess, from the Hellenistic period, was discovered nearby); a bronze jug, found into a pit, attests to the existence of a cult of Adonis, closely associated with Aphrodite by literary sources (Pausanias). The sanctuary of the acropolis, where a limestone temple adorned with so-called "Nabataean" capitals was erected at the end of the 1st century, also delivered dedications to the goddess but also to Augustus. Several dedications to Theos Hypsistos, a deity whose nature remains difficult to define, possibly evoke an important Jewish community in the region. Finally, magical texts recall, still in the 3rd century, the persistence and vitality of popular beliefs.

Latin is sporadically used in Cyprus and remains limited to the official context: in Amathous, a rich Roman citizen consecrated a monumentum to Venus Cypria in the 2nd century; several public inscriptions are dedications or consecrations in the agora.

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A sanctuary "within the steles" (head of Aphrodite)

A sanctuary of Aphrodite was probably located near the north gate of the city wall. A  beautiful marble head  from the 2nd century BC was found in this area. I nscriptions  by proconsul Lucius Bruttius Maximus attest to the repair, around 79 AD, of this place of worship after an earthquake.

A sanctuary «within the steles» (imperial period inscription)

Adonis jug

The dot-punched dedication engraved on this  bronze jug , discovered at the bottom of a cistern near the North wall, evokes the existence of a cult of Adonis-Helios in the first years of the imperial period. Adonis, Aphrodite's companion, is relatively poorly documented in Cyprus.

Temple of the acropolis

Towards the end of the 1st century AD, a  limestone temple  was built within the sanctuary of the acropolis, adorned with  capitals in the so-called «Nabataean» style . The temple was demolished a few centuries later, and its blocks were reused to build a Christian complex. Many were found during the excavations.

Temple of the acropolis

Inscription of Kallinikos

For a long time, before the beginning of systematic excavations at the site of Amathous, this  rock inscription  was an important landmark for travellers visiting the site. It commemorates the construction, in the 1st century AD, by Lucios Vitellios Kallinikos, of a structure (a staircase or ramp) connecting the lower town with the acropolis.

Magical texts

A series of magical texts, kept between London and Paris, has long been attributed to Kourion, but actually originates from Amathous. Inscribed on lead or gypsum, these texts illustrate magical practices (curses, enchantments) that were very still popular in the 3rd century AD despite the spread of Christianity.  A much later specimen  (6th century) was found during the excavations of the North wall.

Magical texts

Further readings

Jean Marcillet-Jaubert, " Venus Cypria ", Cahiers du Centre d'Études Chypriotes 7, 1987, pp. 33-34

 Pierre Aupert , " L'escalier de Kallinikos ", in  Pierre Aupert  (dir.),  Guide d’Amathonte , Sites et monuments 15, 1996, pp. 108-109

5. The town of Saint Tychon

At the end of the 4th century, Amathous was evangelized by Saint Tychon, his second bishop: several miracles are attributed to the saint. A church was built, possibly on his tomb, on the eastern edge of the ancient town: ruined today, it is still frequented by the faithful.

Other churches were built during the last centuries of the town, notably on the acropolis, where a small basilica took the place of the temple of the imperial period. No text allows us to know to whom it was dedicated, but it was certainly a prestigious building because of its location and its rich decoration (opus sectile pavement, champlevé marble slabs, chancel slabs, glass mosaics...).

An imposing wall, very well visible halfway up the acropolis, is the last known monument of civil architecture. Built in the 6th century and rebuilt in the 7th century, it could not stop the Arab raids that in the second half of the 7th century led to the depopulation and abandonment of the town.

Basilica of Agios Tychon

The ruins of the  church of Agios Tychon , on the eastern edge of the ancient site, are adapted for the attendance of the faithful and the celebrations that take place every year in June. The church underwent several phases and successive modifications from the 4th to the 15th century.

Basilica of the acropolis

The C hristian complex built on top of the acropolis , in place of and partly with the blocks of the temple of Aphrodite, was richly decorated. Its opus sectile pavement, still visible a few years ago, is now covered for protection.

Basilica of the acropolis

Middle fortification wall of the acropolis

A monumental work, the  middle fortification wall of the acropolis  was visible even before the excavation of 1988. The  curtain wall , more than 250 m long, is reinforced by 6 towers. Despite its solidity, this fortification had a limited period of use: from the beginning to the end of the 7th century.

Further readings

Eleni Procopiou, " Eglise d'Ayios Tykhonas (Saint-Tykhon) ", in  Pierre Aupert  (dir.),  Guide d'Amathonte , Sites et monuments 15, 1996, pp. 153-160

 Annie Pralong ,  Jean-Michel Saulnier , " La basilique chrétienne du sommet de l’acropole ", in Pierre Aupert (dir.), Guide d’Amathonte, Sites et monuments 15, 1996, pp. 132-145

 Anna Cannavò ,  Mission française d'Amathonte