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Amathous
Amathus or Amathous ( grc, Ἀμαθοῦς) was an ancient city and one of the ancient royal cities of Cyprus until about 300 BC. Some of its impressive remains can be seen today on the southern coast in front of Agios Tychonas, about west of Larnaca and east of Limassol. Its ancient cult sanctuary of Aphrodite was the second most important in Cyprus, her homeland, after Paphos. Archaeological work has recently been continued at the site and many finds are exhibited in the Limassol Museum. History Pre-history and ancient era The pre-history of Amathus survives in both myth and archaeology. Archaeology has detected human activity from the earliest Iron Age, BC. The city's legendary founder was Cinyras, linked with the birth of Adonis, who called the city after his mother Amathous. According to a version of the Ariadne legend noted by Plutarch, Theseus abandoned Ariadne at Amathousa, where she died giving birth to her child and was buried in a sacred tomb. According to Plut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cinyras
In Greek mythology, Cinyras (; grc, Κινύρας – ''Kinyras'') was a famous hero and king of Cyprus. Accounts vary significantly as to his genealogy and provide a variety of stories concerning him; in many sources he is associated with the cult of Aphrodite on Cyprus, and Adonis, a consort of Aphrodite, is mentioned as his son. Some scholars have proposed a connection with the minor Ugaritic deity Kinnaru, the god of the lyre. The city Cinyreia on Cyprus was believed to have taken its name from Cinyras. According to Strabo, he had previously ruled in the city of Byblos in Phoenicia. Biography The name Cinyras does not appear again until he is mentioned by Pindar as "beloved of Apollo," and the priest of Aphrodite. Pindar mentions Cinyras as being fabulously rich in ''Nemean Ode 8'' line 18. Later, in Greek and Roman literature and in the Christian fathers such as Clement of Alexandria, the story of Cinyras is elaborated. They say that on Cyprus, Cinyras was revered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agios Tychonas
Agios Tychonas ( el, Άγιος Τύχωνας) is a town in the Limassol District of Cyprus, located east of Limassol. The ancient ruins of Amathus Amathus or Amathous ( grc, Ἀμαθοῦς) was an ancient city and one of the ancient royal cities of Cyprus until about 300 BC. Some of its impressive remains can be seen today on the southern coast in front of Agios Tychonas, about west of ... are located near the town. Gallery File:Ayios Tychonas entrance 1.JPG, File:Ayios Tychonas entrance 2.JPG, File:Church of Saint Annas and Stilianos at Ayios Tychonas 2.JPG, File:Church of Saint Annas and Stilianos at Ayios Tychonas 4.JPG, File:Church of Saint Annas and Stilianos at Ayios Tychonas 6.JPG, File:Agios Tychonas path along the coast.JPG, File:Agios Tychonas path along the coast 1.JPG, File:Agios Tychonas path along the coast 10.JPG, File:Agios Tychonas path along the coast 11.JPG, File:Agios Tychonas path along the coast 2.JPG, File:Agios Tychonas path along the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heracles
Heracles ( ; grc-gre, Ἡρακλῆς, , glory/fame of Hera), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive descent through Amphitryon, Heracles receives the epithet Alcides, as "of the line of Alcaeus", father of Amphitryon. Amphitryon's own, mortal son was Iphicles. He was a great-grandson and half-brother (as they are both sired by the god Zeus) of Perseus, and similarly a half-brother of Dionysus. He was the greatest of the Greek heroes, the ancestor of royal clans who claimed to be Heracleidae (), and a champion of the Olympian order against chthonic monsters. In Rome and the modern West, he is known as Hercules, with whom the later Roman emperors, in particular Commodus and Maximian, often identified themselves. The Romans adopted the Greek version of his life and works essentially unchanged, but added anecdotal detail of their own, so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Limassol District
Limassol District () or Lemesos ( el, Λεμεσός) is one of the six districts of Cyprus. , it had a population of 239,842, 77% of which was urban. Its main city is Limassol. Part of the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia forms an enclave on the Akrotiri Peninsula, under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom. History The buried ancient city of Amathus is from Limassol. Archaeological excavations have unearthed ruins of the Byzantine period and a tomb of the 7th century BC. The ancient Kolossi Castle, which is located to the west of Limassol, reflects the fall of Acre and history of the Templars and their confiscated property allotted to the Limassol District for cultivation of wine and sugarcane. Geography Limassol District forms much of the southwestern-central part of Cyprus. The Kouris River rises in the southern slopes of Troodos mountains, which lie in the northern part of the district towards the centre of Cyprus, and flows to the sea near the ancie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eteocypriot
Eteocypriot is an extinct pre-Indo-European language that was spoken in Cyprus by the pre-Hellenic population until the Iron Age. The name means "true" or "original Cypriot" parallel to Eteocretan, both of which names are used by modern scholars to mean the pre-Greek languages of those places. Eteocypriot was written in the Cypriot syllabary, a syllabic script derived from Linear A (via the Cypro-Minoan variant Linear C). The language was under pressure from Arcadocypriot Greek from about the 10th century BC and finally became extinct in about the 4th century BC. The language is as yet unknown except for a small vocabulary attested in bilingual inscriptions. Such topics as syntax and possible inflection or agglutination remain an enigma. Partial translations depend to a large extent on the language or language group assumed by the translator, but there is no consistency. It is conjectured by some linguists to be related to the Etruscan and Lemnian languages, by others to be re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ariadne
Ariadne (; grc-gre, Ἀριάδνη; la, Ariadne) was a Cretan princess in Greek mythology. She was mostly associated with mazes and labyrinths because of her involvement in the myths of the Minotaur and Theseus. She is best known for having helped Theseus escape the Minotaur but being abandoned by him on the island of Naxos; subsequently, she became the wife of Dionysus. (There are many other versions of her myth.) The ancient Roman author Hyginus identified Ariadne as the Roman Libera/Proserpina at approximately the same time as Libera was officially identified with Proserpina in 205 BC, these two names becoming synonymous for the same goddess. Hyginus equated Libera/Proserpina with Ariadne as bride to Liber whose Greek equivalent was Dionysus, the husband of Ariadne. Etymology Greek lexicographers in the Hellenistic period claimed that ''Ariadne'' is derived from the ancient Cretan dialectical elements ''ari'' (ἀρι-) "most" (which is an intensive prefix) and ''adn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Euboea
Evia (, ; el, Εύβοια ; grc, Εὔβοια ) or Euboia (, ) is the second-largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. It is separated from Boeotia in mainland Greece by the narrow Euripus Strait (only at its narrowest point). In general outline it is a long and narrow island; it is about long, and varies in breadth from to . Its geographic orientation is from northwest to southeast, and it is traversed throughout its length by a mountain range, which forms part of the chain that bounds Thessaly on the east, and is continued south of Euboia in the lofty islands of Andros, Tinos and Mykonos. It forms most of the regional unit of Euboea, which also includes Skyros and a small area of the Greek mainland. Name Like most of the Greek islands, Euboea was known by other names in antiquity, such as ''Macris'' (Μάκρις) and ''Doliche'' (Δολίχη) from its elongated shape, or ''Ellopia'', ''Aonia'' and ''Abantis'' from the tribes inhabiting it. Its ancie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bronze Age Collapse
The Late Bronze Age collapse was a time of widespread societal collapse during the 12th century BC, between c. 1200 and 1150. The collapse affected a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean (North Africa and Southeast Europe) and the Near East, in particular Egypt, eastern Libya, the Balkans, the Aegean, Anatolia, and the Caucasus. It was sudden, violent, and culturally disruptive for many Bronze Age civilizations, and it brought a sharp economic decline to regional powers, notably ushering in the Greek Dark Ages. The palace economy of Mycenaean Greece, the Aegean region, and Anatolia that characterized the Late Bronze Age disintegrated, transforming into the small isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages, which lasted from around 1100 to the beginning of the better-known Archaic age around 750 BC. The Hittite Empire of Anatolia and the Levant collapsed, while states such as the Middle Assyrian Empire in Mesopotamia and the New Kingdom of Egypt survived but wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cypriot Syllabary
The Cypriot or Cypriote syllabary is a syllabic script used in Iron Age Cyprus, from about the 11th to the 4th centuries BCE, when it was replaced by the Greek alphabet. A pioneer of that change was King Evagoras of Salamis. It is descended from the Cypro-Minoan syllabary, in turn, a variant or derivative of Linear A. Most texts using the script are in the Arcadocypriot dialect of Greek, but also one bilingual (Greek and Eteocypriot) inscription was found in Amathus. Origin It has been established that the Cypriot syllabary is derived from the Cypro-Minoan syllabary; the latter is supposed to be derived from the Linear A script, and certainly belongs to the circle of Aegean script (other), Aegean scripts. The most obvious change is the disappearance of ideograms, which were frequent and represented a significant part of Linear A. The earliest inscriptions are found on clay tablets. Parallel to the evolution of Cuneiform script, cuneiform, the signs soon became simpl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pelasgian
The name Pelasgians ( grc, Πελασγοί, ''Pelasgoí'', singular: Πελασγός, ''Pelasgós'') was used by classical Greek writers to refer either to the predecessors of the Greeks, or to all the inhabitants of Greece before the emergence or arrival of the Greeks. In general, "Pelasgian" has come to mean more broadly all the indigenous inhabitants of the Aegean Sea region and their cultures, "a hold-all term for any ancient, primitive and presumably indigenous people in the Greek world". During the classical period, enclaves under that name survived in several locations of mainland Greece, Crete, and other regions of the Aegean. Populations identified as "Pelasgian" spoke a language or languages that at the time Greeks identified as "barbarian", though some ancient writers nonetheless described the Pelasgians as Greeks. A tradition also survived that large parts of Greece had once been Pelasgian before being Hellenized. These parts fell largely, though far from exclusi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Autochthon (ancient Greece)
In ancient Greece, the concept of autochthones (from Ancient Greek ''autos'' "self," and '' chthon'' "soil"; i.e. "people sprung from earth itself") means the indigenous inhabitants of a country, including mythological figures, as opposed to settlers, and those of their descendants who kept themselves free from an admixture of colonizing entities. In mythology, autochthones are those mortals who have sprung from the soil, rocks and trees. They are rooted and belong to the land eternally. Mythology Autochthons are reported in the mythology of the following regions: In Attica: Amphictyon, Cecrops I, Cranaus, Erichthonius, Periphas. In Boeotia: Ogyges, Alalcomenes, Spartoi. In the Peloponnese: Pelasgus of Arcadia, Lelex of Laconia and Aras of Phliasia. Finally, in Atlantis, Evenor. The practice in ancient Greece of describing legendary heroes and men of ancient lineage as "earthborn" greatly strengthened the doctrine of autochthony. In Thebes, the race of Spartoi were believe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sacred Grove
Sacred groves or sacred woods are groves of trees and have special religious importance within a particular culture. Sacred groves feature in various cultures throughout the world. They were important features of the mythological landscape and cult practice of Celtic, Estonian, Baltic, Germanic, ancient Greek, Near Eastern, Roman, and Slavic polytheism; they also occur in locations such as India, Japan ( sacred shrine forests), West Africa and Ethiopia ( church forests). Examples of sacred groves include the Greco-Roman ''temenos'', various Germanic words for sacred groves, and the Celtic ''nemeton'', which was largely but not exclusively associated with Druidic practice. During the Northern Crusades of the Middle Ages, conquering Christians commonly built churches on the sites of sacred groves. The Lakota and various other North American tribes regard particular forests or other natural landmarks as sacred places. Singular trees which a community deems to hold religious s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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