The 'King's Tombs' of Paphos in southwestern Cyprus recall a special period in the history of this island on the border of the West and the Orient. They date from the time when Cyprus belonged to the Egyptian empire of the Ptolemies, the dynasty of Cleopatra.
Paphos is located in the legendary homeland of the goddess Aphrodite; to the east of the place, a rock protruding from the sea (the Petra tou Romiou or "Rock of the Romans") is indicated for the benefit of tourists, where it rose from the foam of the waves. The city itself is said to have been founded by King Agapenor, who was shipwrecked here on his way back from Troy in the twelfth century BC. Paphos became one of the first Cypriot kingdoms, centered on the present-day village of Kouklia. The place grew into an important port city, partly because of its proximity to Alexandria and a wooded hinterland, which allowed shipbuilding to flourish. The greatest prosperity followed in Roman times, during the first centuries of our era.
Today, Paphos, once the "crossroads of three continents", is the capital of Cyprus' western region. The entire city area has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1980. It is therefore teeming with large-scale archaeological monuments and heritage institutions:an archaeological, Byzantine and ethnographic museum, a vast archaeological park including the 'house of Dionysos' with beautiful mosaics and the castle of Paphos, a beautifully exposed Mycenaean site (Bronze Age) at Coral Bay, north of Paphos. Towering over the harbor of Paphos itself rises a massive Turkish fortress from the sixteenth century, built on the remains of a Venetian predecessor.
The urban area is divided into several parts:Upper Paphos (Pano Paphos), Lower Paphos (Kato Paphos), New Paphos (Nea Paphos) and Ktima Paphos. Ancient Paphos, with ruins of the oldest city, is near the present village of Kouklia and may have been founded as early as the Bronze Age by Mycenaeans from the Greek mainland (the story of Agapenor's shipwreck refers to this) or the Phoenicians.
From classical civilization, the story of Paphos flows seamlessly into Christian cultural history:according to the biblical book of Acts, Paul and Barnabas visited the city. Paul is even said to have converted the Roman proconsul there. A white marble column in the grounds of the Ayia Kyriaki Church in southwestern Paphos recalls his presence.
It was built after 1571 on the site of a fourth-century Christian basilica. According to the unconfirmed legend, this is where Paul was flogged by the Romans.Part of Egypt
The actions of Alexander the Great brought the end of Cyprus' subservience to the Persian Empire. After Alexander's early death in 323 BC, the strife among his successors began a confusing time for the island, which ended when Cyprus was definitively annexed to the Egyptian Empire under its last dynasty. It was named after its founder, Alexander's general Ptolemy. Cyprus came under an Egyptian governor, the 'strategos'. One of them, who was also called Ptolemy or Ptolemy, called himself "King of Cyprus" in 58 BC. Perhaps the name Koningsgraven therefore contains a bit of historical reality. Ptolemy, however, was deposed by the Romans. The last Egyptian monarch to rule Cyprus was the world-famous Cleopatra, the last of the Ptolemy dynasty. After her death, Cyprus became in 30 BC. incorporated into the Roman Empire. Incidentally, Cyprus is not the only island in the Hellenic world that preserves legendary or not legendary memories of the dynasty of the Ptolemies. For example, Cleopatra is said to have buried her treasures on Kos, and a 'Ptolemy grave' is also known on the east coast of Rhodes.
No 'real' king or Ptolemaic pharaoh was ever buried in Paphos. Since the third century BC, the administrative and religious elite of Egyptian Cyprus found their final resting place here. This is confirmed by the relatively recent discovery of a pair of limestone (Ptolemaic) eagles in one of the tombs. Later, the notables from the Roman period were interred in the complex. The area of the Royal Tombs has been used as a necropolis for about half a millennium, until the third century AD. The function gradually fell into oblivion; the complex was now referred to as Paleokastra (ancient castles). Before the Roman Empire converted to Christianity in the fourth century, Christians used the Royal Tombs as a shelter. Centuries later, graves were 'squatted' and converted into houses, with adjustments made in some cases that disrupted the original character. In recent centuries they served as a shelter for gypsies.
Subterranean World
The Royal Tombs are located almost two kilometers northwest of Paphos harbor (where the Roman settlement of New Paphos was located). Nowadays you will find comments from visitors on tourist websites who think that the complex is 'a bit disappointing'.
These complainants apparently did not really penetrate this very special archaeological monument. Admittedly, whoever enters the site initially sees a sun-burnt area against the background of an azure blue sea; an area of barren vegetation, interrupted here and there by burial mounds and low stone walls and rubble. But as soon as you peek into or enter one of the many accessible tombs, you literally find yourself in another, 'subterranean' world:not only the world of the long-forgotten dead, but also that of a fascinating cultural period in the history of Cyprus, shaped by both Greco-Hellenistic and Egyptian features. Influenced by the religion of Egypt, Cyprus had already been subjected to from the eighth to the fifth century BC, the "archaic period" when the pantheon was populated by Greek, Phoenician, and Egyptian gods in addition to native guises.Several dozen graves are accessible. The most impressive excavated (and partially restored) in recent decades are those with a peristylium. This is a courtyard surrounded by columns, a Hellenistic element that, applied in the funerary architecture, at the same time reflected the ancient Egyptian notion that tombs should be furnished with the same elements as the houses of living people.
Larger graves also have a well-cut well and house altars or small temples have been installed. It was an expression of the idea that the civilization of ancient Egypt shared with many preclassical cultures, namely that life after death was more or less a continuation of life on Earth, with the same activities and needs. The most beautiful peristyle tombs can be found in the Egyptian metropolis of Alexandria (Mustafa Pasha complex), where the fusion of Hellenistic forms with ancient Egyptian ideas, which is characteristic of the Ptolemaic period, was also expressed. Also in Paphos itself, the houses of the living, or at least of the wealthy, were an example for the necropolis, as witnessed by the already mentioned 'house of Dionysos' in the archaeological park.Paphos, Pompeii, Ephesus
There are also tombs of the atrium type. We know the atrium as the center of the Roman house. It was a room with a large opening in the ceiling through which the rain could fall into a reservoir (impluvium). This system was such that it lasted for many centuries; you see it, for example, in late medieval Florentine city palaces. At a later stage of Roman architectural history, peristylia were widely added to the core of the enclosure; examples of these homes, which indicate great wealth and a desire for a pleasant lifestyle, can be admired in Pompeii (Italy); also in Ephesus (Turkey) a peristyle atrium house, dating from the first century AD, was excavated and restored in 1969.
Some royal tombs have a 'dromos', usually in the form of a staircase. An Egyptian dromos was a long entranceway to a temple, flanked by sphinxes. The more general meaning, which also applies in Paphos, is that of 'close approach'. We already know this element in Greek cultural history from the Mycenaean tombs. Many burial chambers in Paphos have single or many loculi; a loculus is a rectangular niche cut out of the rock, intended for a single burial. Originally they were closed with flat stones, decorated with painted plaster imitating temple facades or wooden doors; this custom is also known from Macedonia and Alexandria, which again betrays the Hellenistic-Ptolemaic influence. Incidentally, the excavations have shown that almost all the graves were plastered and provided with frescoes.Excavations and finds
One of the first figures to "excavate" the Royal Tombs and elsewhere in Cyprus was Louis P. di Cesnola (1832-1904), an Italian-American soldier and amateur archaeologist. Cesnola led a very adventurous life. He fought in the Crimean War and the American Civil War, taught Italian and French in New York, and was appointed consul in Larnaca, Cyprus in 1865. Cesnola wrote the ancient travel book Cyprus, its ancient Cities, Tombs and Temples (1877) and became a member of numerous scientific societies in Europe and America. As an archaeologist, he belonged to the considerable legion of nineteenth-century, ruthless treasure diggers. In Cyprus he is therefore seen as a looter rather than an antiquarian. A recent English-language guide to the Royal Tombs speaks of 'severe looting' by Cesnola and his successors. Besides them, many anonymous grave robbers were also active, digging tunnels between different graves. Many archaeological and art-historical treasures, including from the Royal Tombs, were removed by the British, who ruled Cyprus between 1878 and 1960.
In the years 1915/16 and 1937-1951, excavations were carried out by Cypriot scholars and dilettantes. It was not until 1977 that systematic excavation campaigns began under the supervision of the Cypriot Department of Antiquities. Ten campaigns unlocked three large tomb complexes and many smaller tombs. Loose finds include amphorae and other crockery, ivory toiletries, pottery lamps and some gold myrtle wreaths. Some skeletons were found to have been 'reburied' in amphorae, presumably to make room for new burials. Remnants of food offerings have also been recovered; a custom that has withstood all the oppressors and cultural injections in Cyprus. Funeral meals have been used at the family grave since Hellenistic times. Wine was poured for the gods and the relatives deposited the remains of the meal at the grave. This ritual was apparently repeated every year. It still takes place in a single village in Cyprus, albeit in a modified form. Nowadays, the meal is eaten in a restaurant.