A Cypriote Inscription from Keryneia

Abstract

The town of Keryneia is situate on the northern coast of the Island of Cyprus, between the ancient city of Lapethos and the town of Macaria. It was founded by Kepheus, the leader of an Achaean colony in Cyprus, simultaneously with Lapethos, which was founded by Praxandros of Therapnae in Laconia. Keryneia figured as one of the nine kingdoms of Cyprus during her naval supremacy about the tenth-ninth century B.C. The last king or tyrannus of Keryneia was Themison, who was taken prisoner and deposed by Ptolemaeus Soter I. in 312 B.C., together with the last king of Lapethos, Praxippus, on the ground that they made alliance with Antigonus against him. By the seashore at the western end of the town there is an extensive necropolis of rock-cut tombs, some containing more than one chamber, which were rifled in ancient times; these the inhabitants of the small modern town, following ancient tradition, call ‘the Tombs of the Greeks,’ Τάϕους τῶν Ἑλλήνων. The ancient town obviously extended southwards, on the plateau overlooking the coast, and included the present quarter of ‘Ρηάτικον or ‘Ρηγάτικον (Royal Residence), a word handed down from the Frankish period. Keryneia played a prominent part in mediaeval history from the deposition of Isaac Comnenus, the last Byzantine King of Cyprus, by Richard the Lion-Hearted in 1191, until 1570.