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| Tuesday, October 21st ... we pick up in the middle of our trip to Cyprus. Today we decided to go for only
a short drive, to hopefully view some 2000 year old Roman ruins. |
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| We
drove along the coast to the south of Paphos; we
never expected this area to be so built-up. During the early Roman times, this was the capital and most populated area on Cyprus. |
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| This place had a nicely landscaped beachfront, but developments were creeping in from behind. | ||
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| We went to a national park which contained the excavated ruins of 'Central Roman Paphos'. Due to the dry climate, this park contains some of the most well-preserved Roman ruins in the world. | ||
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| Rock walls were used as fences. | Amphitheatre seating for 1000. | Overlooking the Amphitheatre. |
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| It was lucky they made this area a National Park, as developers built right up to the park boundary. | ||
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| This area had been conquered many times and most buildings were repeatedly destroyed & re-built. Most of the rock blocks & marble were recycled; but some nice broken items were just tossed aside. | ||
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| The Romans had very advanced building techniques and used multiple layers of rocks for support. They had underground water cisterns and a floor-heating system which used flowing hot water. | ||
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| These arches are theoretically original, but I find that hard to believe ... but it's possible! | ||
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| Over thousands of years, these ruins were covered by dirt and sand dunes. Only recently were they excavated and restored to their present condition. It's not hard to imagine that there are many more ruins to be discovered in the surrounding area. |
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| We
walked down a main path that took us past the foundations of many buildings
... as if we were walking down the main street of an ancient city ... quite
cool!
Luckily UNESCO has made this area a World Heritage site, thus it will always be protected from looters and developers. |
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| The most valuable findings have been the mosaic floors, which identified the richest homes. | ||
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| The main attraction was the Governor's palace; It's hard to imagine what this looked like back then. | ||
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| The
excavations had to go quite deep to uncover the mosaic floors, which were in
surprisingly good shape.
This area has had many earthquakes over time. It was interesting to see how the floors developed 'rolls' and 'bumps'. |
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| Some mosaics were really magnificent. From afar, they didn't look that great ... but from a close distance they were quite detailed. Most of them had a theme or told some kind of story. | ||
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| The patterns were quite complicated and had a masterful combination of colors and shading. | ||
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We then entered a covered area with the best mosaics. Some of them looked like paintings, while others looked like rugs on the floor. |
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| Some of the stories they told were of fighting animals or of some war victory in a far-away land. | ||
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Other stories seemed to be based upon religion (worship of gods)... ... or related to the conflict between good and evil. |
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| This compilation was a family portrait ... maybe the last guy got killed by a blow to the head? | ||
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| Some mosaics are not understood by analysts ... maybe they just showed a gathering with friends. | ||
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| Some mosaics were complicated and had neat graphical designs; they could made you dizzy! | ||
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| Some designs looked like mazes, puzzles or illusions ... many I have seen before. | ||
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| Many mosaics were just of pretty things to look at; many had animals in it. Analysts can obviously use these mosaics to get a better idea of what life was like back then ... to go along with the scrolls and writings found elsewhere. |
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| This was a small mosaic that we were lucky to run across. As we looked closely, we could see that it was very complicated, due to the many different colors that were used ... dark reds and blue which we didn't see used before. This angel could have been the welcome mat! |
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| As we were leaving the park, the sun was getting lower and the shading on this
mosaic caught my eye.
The shading was mostly due to the perfectly chosen colors; they were quite an artistic/scientific people! |
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| Our tour of the Roman ruins ended at the fortress near the marina, which had quite a few nice boats ... and a number of bars which offered happy hour drink specials! | ||
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We were quite worn out from walking around in the hot and dry climate. We returned to the hotel and set up the pool chairs so we could relax and watch the sunset ... it was quite stunning! |
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