Abstract
This article aims to raise issues for discussion about the change in the use and concept of sacred landscapes, which were originally constructed in the era of the Cypriot kings (the basileis), but then continued to function in a new imperial environment, that of the rule of the Ptolemaic strategos and later of the Roman proconsul and the various Christian bishops. Our archaeological survey project in the Xeros river valley, titled ‘Settled and Sacred Landscapes of Cyprus’, reveals that these new politico-economic structures were also supported by the construction of symbolically charged sacred landscapes. Thus, while outlining the long history of the island as manifested from the diachronic study of Cypriot sacred landscapes, we identify three pivotal phases: first, the consolidation of the Cypriot polities and the establishment of a ‘full’ sacred landscape; second, the transition from segmented to unitary administration under the Ptolemaic and Roman imperial rule and the consolidation of a more ‘unified sacred landscape’; and finally, the establishment of a number of Christian bishoprics on the island and the movement back to a ‘full’ sacred landscape. Moving beyond the discipline of Cypriot archaeology, this contribution aims to serve as a paradigm for the implications that the employment of the ‘sacred landscapes’ concept may have when addressing issues of socio-political and socio-economic transformations. While it is very difficult to define or capture the concept of landscape in a pre-modern world, it offers a useful means by which to assess changing local conditions. We have also attempted to situate the term in archaeological thought, in order to allow the concept to become a more powerful investigative tool for approaching the past.
Highlights
Contemporary approaches to landscape archaeology include a broad range of archaeological processes of organizing space, and involves interaction between the physical environment and issues, such as social organization, rural economy and sacred space, trying to agency, human presence
Landscape archaeology has followed the main trends of the theoretical developments of archaeology by moving through a number of stages, though they have not been sequential
The study of Cypriot sacred landscapes within the longue durée, their transformations and their possible change of meanings, reinforce current interpretations suggesting that the extra-urban sanctuaries played an important role in the political setting of the city-kingdoms, which transformed over time
Summary
Contemporary approaches to landscape archaeology include a broad range of archaeological processes of organizing space, and involves interaction between the physical environment and issues, such as social organization, rural economy and sacred space, trying to agency, human presence. Morality and Contemporary approaches include a broad of archaeological landscapes Mediterranean issues, such as social organization, rural economy and sacred space, trying to extract agency,. Cypro–Classical city-kingdoms to relation the Hellenistic period, the Hellenistic and ideology Such landscape perspectives are absent from studies of the crucial transitions the the Roman era, and from Roman times to early Christianity. Cypro–Archaic and Cypro–Classical city-kingdoms to the Hellenistic period, from the Hellenistic to studies to provide a major source of new interpretations on the longue durée
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