The Inscriptions Of Kourion

T.B. Mitford presents a comprehensive study of all known inscriptions from the ancient city of Kourion on the island of Cyprus. These date from the 7th, perhaps the 8th cent. B.C., through the Classical, Hellenistic, and Imperial Roman periods, to the early Byzantine era. The finds are fully illustrated by photos and line drawings. Tables of syllabic signs include the signaries of Archaic Kourion, the Treasure of Kourion, Classical Kourion, Archaic and Classical Paphos, and the Common Cypriot Signary of the Classical Period. A full bibliography, a concordance of the inscriptions, and plans of archaeological sites are provided, the whole forming a richly annotated and illustrated corpus of Kourion and its environs.

Replete with mosaics and revetment, the basilica was the center of the ecclesiastical administration until its destruction in the late seventh century. In this long-awaited report, Megaw and colleagues present in full the results of excavations from the 1930s, 1950s, and 1970s.

This work discusses the decline of Greek religion and the christianization of town and countryside in the eastern Roman Empire between the death of Julian the Apostate and the laws of Justinian the Great against paganism, c. 370-529. It examines such questions as the effect of the laws against sacrifice and sorcery, temple conversions, the degradation of pagan gods into daimones, the christianization of rite, and the social, political and economic background of conversion to Christianity. Several local contexts are examined in great detail: Gaza, Athens, Alexandria, Aphrodisias, central Asia Minor, northern Syria, the Nile basin, and the province of Arabia. It lays particular emphasis on the criticism of epigraphy, legal evidence, and hagiographic texts, and traces the demographic growth of Christianity and the chronology of this process in select local contexts. It also seeks to understand the behavioral patterns of conversion.