The present volume brings together scholars of religion and archaeology to give new insights into the social, cultural, and religious context of Cyprus in the first to seventh centuries CE. It foregrounds material culture and archaeological finds and analysis of evidence of religion in Cyprus in antiquity.
Cyprus was a crossroads in the ancient eastern Mediterranean, a key location between east and west, in which Judaism, Greco-Roman religions, and Christianity intersected, and where Christianity came to flourish. Bringing together scholars of religion and archaeology to study Cyprus in antiquity, this volume's contributions cover a myriad of topics, including the mosaics of Cyprus, its silver treasures, religious tensions between Christians and others, the role of Epiphanius, the story of St. Barnabas, the powerful position of Cyprus as autocephalous within emerging orthodoxy in antiquity, those who used so-called magical texts, those who worked in a harbor, those involved with the transport of building materials, and early representations of Cyprian saints. By drawing on literary, archaeological, and art historical evidence from the first century CE to the medieval period, the volume elucidates the diversity of Christianity in late antique Cyprus, while also discussing relations between Christians, Jews, and members of Greco-Roman religions.
Table of contents:
Laura Nasrallah: Introduction, and a Case Study of the Eustolios Complex at Kourion -
Charalambos Bakirtzis: Sea Routes and Cape Drepanon from the Hellenistic to the Byzantine Period Excavations at Agios Georgiōs Tēs Pegeias, Paphos, Cyprus -
James Carleton Paget: Cyprus in the New Testament and beyond -
Athanasios Papageorghiou/Nikolas Bakirtzis: Archaeological Realities and Hagiographic Narratives: Revisiting the Beginnings of Christianity in Cyprus -
Henry Maguire: The Gods, Christ, and the Emperor in the Late Antique Art of Cyprus -
Demetrios Michaelides: Mosaic Workshops in Cyprus from the Fourth to the Seventh Centuries CE: Two Parallel Lives? -
Andrew Wilburn: Ritual Specialists and the Curse Tablets from Amathous, Cyprus -
Andrew Jacobs: Epiphanius's Library -
Young Richard Kim: Cypriot Autocephaly, Reconsidered -
AnneMarie Luijendijk: The Gospel of Matthew in the Acts of Barnabas through the Lens of a Book's History: Healing and Burial with Books -
Ioli Kalavrezou: The Cyprus Treasures since their Discovery: A Re-Evaluation -
Stephanos Efthymiadis: The Cult of Saints in Late Antique Cyprus and the Apostolicity of its Churches: The Testimony of Greek Hagiography -
Marina Solomidou-Ieronymidou/George Filotheou: The Representation and Memory of Saints Paul, Barnabas, Epiphanios, and Others on Wall Paintings of Byzantine and Medieval Cyprus
