Cypriot Mythology

Written by the celebrated Cypriot artist Stass Paraskos, the Mythology of Cyprus is an immensely readable and truly entertaining journey through the pagan world of ancient Cyprus, when the island really was the Land of Aphrodite, goddess of love. First published in 1981, the book was a pioneering exploration of the way ancient Greek mythology was understood in a regional location such as Cyprus. As Michael Paraskos explains in his new introduction, the book was written at a time when few academics bothered to pay much attention to Cyprus, and many Cypriots themselves preferred to see their island's history and culture as no more than an extension of Greece or Turkey, rather than a unique phenomenon in its own right. The publication of this book set down a challenge to those narratives, presenting for the first time a uniquely Cypriot view of ancient Greek mythology ad folklore, written by a Cypriot. With special excursions into surviving influences of pagan belief and practise in modern Cyprus, and a fictionalised journey around pre-Christian Cyprus in the company of a character named Bronteas, the Mythology of Cyprus is joy to read.

Chrysovalantis Kyriacou examines how memories of the pre-Christian past, Christian militarism, power struggles, and ethnoreligious encounters have left their long-term imprint on Cypriot culture. One of the most impressive examples of this phenomenon is the preservation and transformative adaptation of Byzantine heroic themes, motifs, and symbols in Cypriot folk songs. By combining a variety of written sources and archaeological material in his interdisciplinary examination, the author reconstructs the image of the Byzantine warrior hero in the songs, recovering the mentalities of overshadowed social protagonists and stressing the role of subaltern communities as active agents in the shaping of history.

This pioneering volume approaches the languages and scripts of ancient Cyprus from an interdisciplinary point of view, with a primarily linguistic and epigraphic approach supplemented by a consideration of their historical and cultural context. The focus is on furthering our knowledge of the non-Greek languages/scripts, as well as appreciating their place in relation to the much better understood Greek language on the island. Following on from recent advances in Cypro-Minoan studies, these difficult, mostly Late Bronze Age inscriptions are reassessed from first principles. The same approach is taken for non-Greek languages written in the Cypriot Syllabic script during the first millennium BC, chiefly the one usually referred to as Eteocypriot. The final section is then dedicated to the Phoenician language, which was in use on Cyprus for some hundreds of years. The result is a careful reappraisal of these languages/scripts after more than a century of sometimes controversial scholarship.

Examining every aspect of the culture from antiquity to the founding of Constantinople in the early Byzantine era, this thoroughly cross-referenced and fully indexed work is written by an international group of scholars. This Encyclopedia is derived from the more broadly focused Encyclopedia of Greece and the Hellenic Tradition, the highly praised two-volume work. Newly edited by Nigel Wilson, this single-volume reference provides a comprehensive and authoritative guide to the political, cultural, and social life of the people and to the places, ideas, periods, and events that defined ancient Greece.

This volume explores Cyprus in ancient literature and through contemporary evidence, discussing texts from Greco-Roman antiquity that examine the island, its myths, gods, heroes, and literary output, as well as the way it is perceived in ancient literature.

This is the new edition of a book written and now revised by Stass Paraskos. Stass is a leading Cypriot who was a Course Leader in Painting at Canterbury College of Art and in now the Principle of Cyprus College of Art in Paphos, the birthplace of Aphrodite. Some of his paintings depicting incidents in the life of the Goddess of Love, are reproduced in this publication. The late Viscount Tonypandy, a frequent traveller to Cyprus commented about this book: "...Greek mythology provides an eternal fascination... Stass Paraskos, one of Cyprus' most distinguished artists provides in this book an exciting recital of the influence Greek mythology has brought to bear on Greek Cypriot development..." This book makes an excellent read and it is an ideal reference book.

Cypriot pollitics are among the most contentious in Europe, and frequently attract the attention of the international community. Here, Yiannos Katsourides traces the historical development of the Cypriot party system, and in particular the growth of the Communist Party, now known as AKEL- the first formally organised political party on the island. The party was a political movement with a specific programme for radical reform that conficted both with the British Empire and the local establishment. It was treated with hostility and declared illegal. Based on new archival research, Katsorides addresses the social, religious, economic and political environment in which communist and working class politics existed on the island, and locates them within the context of a country connected inextricably with Turkey, Great Britain and Greece. This book will be of significant interest to anyone interested in the history of Cyprus, European communist movements or British colonialism and diplomacy in the Mediterranean.