Three Vaulted Basilicas in Cyprus

Extract

Sir George Hill, in his History of Cyprus, refers to a group of early churches in the Island in the following passage: ‘It seems improbable that any important buildings can have been put up during the periods of the Arab raids, that is, from the middle of the eighth century to 965. Churches, for instance, like those at Aphendrika, which have been attributed on the one hand to the sixth or seventh century, on the other to the “Romanesque,” would not have been built at a time when the population of places like Ayios Philon and Lambousa was moving inland to escape the raiders. Whether the earlier or the later date is to be preferred must be left to the specialists.' In a footnote, he recorded my own opinion that the vaulted basilicas of the Aphendrika type should be dated after the Byzantine reconquest. The purpose of this article is to present some evidence in support of that opinion. It concerns three ruined churches, all in the village lands of Rizokarpaso: the Panayia and Asomatos churches at Aphendrika, the site, which Hogarth identified as Urania, near the north coast 5 miles north-east of the village, and the Panayia at Sykha, some 6 miles south-west of the village, on the south side of the Karpas peninsula.