The team believes the stones were part of a rare rural temple stood on a prominent rocky hill in Cyprus. Limestone fragments collecting dust in Cypriot museums for more than two decades are now believed to be the remains of a rare countryside Roman-era temple thanks to research spearheaded by Polish archeologists. The roughly six-meter-tall structure, dating to the late 1st century AD, stood near the ancient city of Kourion on Cyprus's southern coast, according to research led by Anna Kordas of the University of Warsaw. Its 48 fragments, mostly pieces of columns and cornices, were found on a hillside in 1997 but moved to museums in 2000 without being examined. At the time, it was unclear whether they came from a building or a stonemason's workshop. Kordas revisited them in 2022 for her PhD. Using photogrammetry and digital models, her team, which included researchers from TU Wien and Wrocław University of Science and Technology, reconstructed columns about five meters tall. "Such a structure would be lower than the largest temples of Cyprus," Kordas told Polish news agency PAP. But, she added, "the height of the structure we reconstructed points to a building of a monumental character, not an ordinary dwelling." A shrine outside the city The team believes the building stood on a prominent rocky hill near a fork in the road, where Roman routes linking Kourion with Paphos and Marion may have met. "Such a location may indicate that it was a sanctuary outside the main city center," Kordas said. In the Hellenistic and Roman periods, rural shrines on Cyprus dwindled as sanctuaries in coastal cities grew ever grander. "The discovery of a rural sanctuary with monumental architecture built in the Roman period would therefore be something exceptional," she said. If it was a temple, it may have honored a fertility or nature deity, Apollo, or the Roman emperor. It could also have been a temple-shaped tomb, a type known from Syria, Egypt and Asia Minor but never clearly identified on Cyprus. The researchers stress that their findings are preliminary. This article includes reporting by the Polish news agency PAP.
The team believes the stones were part of a rare rural temple in Cyprus. (Eleni Procopiou, Anna Urszula Kordas/Cyprus' Department of Antiquities)
