Acts 13:4 "So ........ they sailed to Cyprus. And when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews: and they had also John to their minister. And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Barjesus: Which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man; who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God. But Elymas the sorcerer withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. Then Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him. And said, 'O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season.' And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand. Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord. Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia ......"
October 25 - We flew to Larnaka, Cyprus, and followed in the footsteps of Paul across the southern side of the island. Sort of. He started at Salamis, a bit further east, which is now across the border in Turkish Cyprus.
On day 1, we rented a car and drove to Limassol. This is not as easy as it sounds. In Cyprus, they drive on the wrong side of the road from the wrong side of the car. Do not attempt this on your own. It must be done by an expert. Smile.
On the way we stopped at the two Neolithic villages of Choirokitia and Tenta. They take us back to the dawn of civilization when man was transitioning from hunting and gathering to planting and sowing. Our ancestors lived in crude round dwellings like tipis or grass huts, and when they settled down in permanent villages, they continued to build in the round, only now they used stone and plaster. That is what we saw at both villages. They domesticated sheep, goats, and pigs, but also hunted wild deer. And while they planted wheat, barley, peas, and lentils, they also gathered wild fruit. These people did not even know the use of clay and pottery, but used stone and bone implements. The radiocarbon dates indicate the site was occupied from BC 6000 to BC 4000, but who really knows what that means in calendrical years.
One of their peculiar customs was to bury their dead in pits under the house, which were then plastered over. We find the same burial practice at the contemporaneous Anatolian village of Catal Huyuk, and sometimes in the slightly earlier Natufian peoples of Israel. In Biblical times, the Canaanites practiced foundation sacrifice in which a child was entombed in the foundation, as did their posterity, the Phoenicians. "In his days did Hiel the Bethelite built Jericho: he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his firstborn, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son, Segub ....." ( I Kings 16:34).
They reconstructed several of the huts below the ruins, which lie on the hillside behind
They did not have much elbow room. Most of the structures were 8' in diameter; some a bit larger.
Peering inside, this picture shows a floor burial in the foreground and how the short interior walls were used to make a platform for sleeping.
The site of Tenta was covered to preserve the ruins, which are in an amazing state of preservation. This settlement was thought to contain about 150 people.
A family might have two or three of these huts, each of which served a different purpose
The next day we drove to Kourion, about 5 miles west of Limassol. It was a Roman city situated on a high bluff overlooking a spectacular coastline. The ruins are extensive, with a restored theater still used for concerts, a marketplace (agora), houses with well-preserved mosaic floors, a church, public baths, gladiators, etc.
Kourion has a spectacular location
The remains of a Catholic basilica
This was the water heating system of a Roman public bath. The water circulated below the floor between the columns of bricks, and the floor was built above that.
Some of the baths had a "floor" held up on alot of the little stone columns. This was the bottom of the pool. At one end they had fires, at the other chimneys. The hot combustion gases passed under the floor of the pool to warm it.
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