Yeronisos or Geronisos (; ) is a small island lying off the west coast of

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

, some 18 kilometres north of

Paphos Paphos, also spelled as Pafos, is a coastal city in southwest Cyprus and the capital of Paphos District. In classical antiquity, two locations were called Paphos: #Old Paphos, Old Paphos, today known as Kouklia, and #New Paphos, New Paphos. It i ...

. Uninhabited since the 15th century, recent excavations have revealed it once held a sanctuary dedicated to

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

in the late

Hellenistic period In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

Description

The island which lies 280 metres from the shore of western Cyprus has been uninhabited since the 14th or 15th century. It has an area of 26,000 square metres and rises 21.65 metres from sea level. Geologically the island consists of a hard

calcarenite Calcarenite is a type of limestone that is composed predominantly, more than 50 percent, of detrital (transported) sand-size (0.0625 to 2 mm in diameter), Carbonate rock, carbonate grains. The grains consist of sand-size grains of either cor ...

crust of

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

marine terraces overlying a soft

marl Marl is an earthy material rich in carbonate minerals, Clay minerals, clays, and silt. When Lithification, hardened into rock, this becomes marlstone. It is formed in marine or freshwater environments, often through the activities of algae. M ...

core. The toponym "Holy Island" is an ancient one. Pliny speaks of an island called "Hiera," near Paphos, and

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...

mentions a place called "Hierocepis" nearby Paphos and Akamas. It is likely that the name refers to the Apollo sanctuary that stood there in the 1st century BC.

Excavations

The island was first excavated in 1982 by

Sophocles Hadjisavvas Sophocles Hadjisavvas (Greek: Σοφοκλής Χατζησάββας) (b. 1944) is a Cypriot archaeologist and director of the Department of Antiquities between. Early life and education He was born in 1944 in Kakopetria and graduated from Pan ...

following a proposal to build a hotel on the island. He quickly established the presence of Hellenistic remains on the island, which halted all further attempts to build on the island. In 1989,

Joan Breton Connelly Joan Breton Connelly is an American classical archaeologist and Professor of Classics and Art History at New York University. She is Director of the Yeronisos Island Excavations and Field School in Cyprus. Connelly was awarded a MacArthur Fell ...

from New York University heard about the work and impressed by the range of the material joined the excavations which have continued since then. The excavations have established three periods of occupation on Yeronisos. Early

Chalcolithic The Chalcolithic ( ) (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic) was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. It followed the Neolithic and preceded the Bronze Age. It occurred at different periods in di ...

(3800 BC), late

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

(80-30 BC), and

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

(6th-7th century and 13th century). The most intense of this activity is the late Hellenistic period at a time when

Cleopatra Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (; The name Cleopatra is pronounced , or sometimes in both British and American English, see and respectively. Her name was pronounced in the Greek dialect of Egypt (see Koine Greek phonology). She was ...

ruled Cyprus. Artefacts include coins, pottery, glass, and inscriptions. Limestone amulets, identical to those used in Cypriot sanctuaries of Apollo, point to ritual activity and the worship of Apollo. The island was apparently abandoned following a devastating earthquake in 1st century BC/AD. Low-level activity on the island begins again in the 6th century AD. when a reservoir and animal shelters were built.

References

{{reflist

External links

Yeronisos Island Expedition
New York University

www.yeronisos.org Archaeological sites in Cyprus Islands of Cyprus