The Hellenistic inscriptions of Old Paphos

Abstract

The ruins of Old Paphos are now occupied by the village of Kouklia, some 10 miles to the south-south-east of (New) Paphos which lies below Ktima in western Cyprus. Since Old Paphos capital of an ancient city-kingdom, was alike the ecumenical centre of Aphrodite-worship and the ἰερόν of New Paphos, capital of Cyprus for the Ptolemies seemingly from the outset of the second century B.C., its Hellenistic inscriptions are relatively abundant. These I first examined in 1936. I have since then repeatedly revisited the site, to add to the unpublished and to rediscover others long lost. Finally, from 1950 to 1955 excavations were conducted in the area of the Aphrodite temple and in the outskirts of Kouklia, to make a notable enlargement of the total. Here into a handlist of the known inscriptions I incorporate the formal publication of the new material and, wherever this may call for fuller treatment, a greater emphasis on the old.It will be seen from the preceding classification of the documents that there is numerically remarkable disproportion between their classes. Whereas the hard local limestones used for the statue-bases could be employed repeatedly as building material, the dice have been heavily weighted against the survival of the fine, white marbles: two lime-kilns which in 1888 were still squatting on the temple site explain the rarity of these.