The Ancient History of Cyprus

Transcript
0:01 · [Music]
0:06 · okay well as promised this is the first
0:09 · of two videos covering the history of
0:11 · Cyprus there is just so much to cover uh
0:14 · sometime in the future we'll have a
0:15 · chance to stretch our legs and get into
0:17 · detail about the Neolithic on Cyprus
0:18 · which is quite something it's also
0:21 · fascinating for just how much it's got
0:23 · going on in the Bronze Age including a
0:25 · lot of limited to a ton of fines and
0:27 · artistic works to see but I have to keep
0:29 · telling myself this is a summary we are
0:32 · just going to hard cut around the 20
0:33 · minute Mark I'm gonna have to admit my
0:35 · biases up front these episodes have a
0:37 · definite bias towards sites where
0:38 · there's more to see and film but I don't
0:42 · know how much heavy lifting you're
0:43 · expecting us to do with the minutia of
0:45 · like dating fossilized pollen grains or
0:48 · high-level Academia on the topic I mean
0:49 · look big UPS to everyone who's putting
0:51 · work in at that level we're just doing
0:53 · our best okay listing sources as much as
0:55 · possible a lot of the time we're just
0:57 · going to include the museum cards in the
0:58 · bottom right for dating citations
1:03 · every so often it just makes my head
1:05 · spin how Cyprus is running on a
1:07 · completely different clock than ancient
1:09 · Britain
1:10 · I mean point of reference Britain in
1:12 · 7000 BC what's left like if I want to
1:15 · get a sense of it what can I see
1:17 · well I mean we've got some Flint
1:20 · fragments some axes and microliths
1:24 · that's what you've got the inhabitants
1:26 · of Britain were essentially living in
1:27 · shelters that we consider pretty basic
1:29 · and that's not to throw shade this was
1:31 · because they were moving around a lot
1:33 · more exploiting whatever Foods were
1:35 · abundant in the landscape so putting
1:37 · down Roots could spell starvation if
1:38 · your food source is finite or seasonal
1:41 · so when you're in Cyprus I can't help
1:43 · but get a bit giddy to see the remains
1:45 · of dwellings that go back as far as 9
1:47 · 000 even as much as 10 000 years and
1:50 · these structures are still there right
1:53 · in front of your eyes which is what we
1:55 · have a Calabasas tenter there's a
1:57 · tedious but understandable template that
2:00 · some newspaper articles like to run with
2:02 · um X Discovery or structure that is
2:04 · older than Stonehenge
2:07 · but if we're going by that particular
2:09 · metric the earliest occupation levels
2:11 · with actual architecture visible on
2:13 · Cyprus are about as far before
2:15 · Stonehenge as we are after it the
2:18 · structures on Calabasas tenter have to
2:20 · be sheltered from the elements as many
2:22 · of them are mud brick and although it's
2:24 · actually several layers of buildings
2:26 · sometimes in stone sometimes in mud we
2:29 · believe the absolute earliest occupation
2:31 · may have been in wooden structures which
2:32 · you know aren't there anymore now you
2:34 · don't have to be a scholar of antiquity
2:36 · to track if we're talking about a
2:37 · culture that isn't firing ceramic
2:39 · Pottery yet we are early so we call this
2:42 · the a ceramic or pre-pottery Neolithic
2:45 · and not at all far away contemporary
2:47 · with Calabasas being established just
2:48 · slightly later this is hirokitia and not
2:52 · only we have some fantastic remains of
2:54 · the settlement in situ on the hillside
2:55 · they've actually gone to the trouble of
2:57 · reconstructing them and this isn't just
2:59 · a quick theme park job for visitors
3:02 · they've really gone out of their way to
3:03 · replicate original materials and
3:05 · conditions so the hirokitia culture they
3:07 · based on the material that survived in
3:09 · the archeology they're making dwellings
3:11 · with Dimensions conjected to be around
3:13 · two to three meters in height we've got
3:16 · a fair confidence there also flat roofed
3:18 · and we believe the houses were
3:20 · whitewashed with havara which is a white
3:22 · chalky sediment and they're not just
3:24 · putting up these round structures they
3:26 · are planning and building their
3:28 · settlements very deliberately including
3:30 · this staircase which yeah at first
3:32 · doesn't look like anything to get too
3:33 · excited about but this is actually part
3:35 · of a defensive work that controls access
3:37 · to the settlement and despite the fact
3:39 · it's under a shelter and at risk of
3:42 · pretty much just melting away this
3:43 · staircase actually survives in situ so
3:46 · what were the hirokitia culture doing
3:48 · well plant Gathering and hunting
3:51 · including possibly boar which we
3:53 · believed was introduced from the
3:55 · mainland at calabasos they were herding
3:57 · goats and pigs but no cattle yet and
3:59 · there is also cereal cultivation
4:01 · happening like with this iron corn wheat
4:03 · while only this diagram survives we know
4:05 · they are painting with red ocher and
4:07 · these figures were painted on the walls
4:09 · a structure at Calabasas so these guys
4:11 · are making all manner of artistic
4:13 · objects and hey I mean even just the
4:15 · more prosaic and practical items like
4:17 · those Stone containers they're pretty
4:19 · amazing those who have taken significant
4:21 · work and craftsmanship to make anyway in
4:24 · most of Europe you're very rarely going
4:26 · to see much architecture that gets back
4:28 · Beyond 4000 BC so to witness sites this
4:31 · old is truly very exciting
4:33 · considering these cultures are way ahead
4:35 · of what was happening at the same time
4:36 · in northern Europe it might surprise you
4:38 · that around 6000 BC habitation appears
4:42 · to cease we have a noticeable Gap in the
4:44 · archaeological record for maybe up to 1
4:47 · 500 years now both the size and
4:50 · particular reasons for this Gap are very
4:52 · much Up For Debate but hirokitia for
4:55 · example seems to have been abandoned
4:56 · peacefully around 6000 BC when we next
4:59 · pick up the story again not only are we
5:01 · now making Pottery but cypriot Pottery
5:03 · is soon going to go absolutely wild like
5:05 · you've got to see some of the stuff
5:06 · they're producing in Bronze Age but
5:08 · before we get there the chalcolithic
5:11 · period now sometimes it's difficult to
5:13 · determine if the chalcolithic is really
5:15 · a thing or if it's just a transitional
5:18 · culture between the Neolithic and the
5:20 · Bronze Age there seems to be this
5:22 · particular niche in Boomer humor for
5:24 · jokes specifically about the quote Stone
5:27 · Age changing to the Bronze Age overnight
5:29 · like yes
5:31 · what an amazing premise for humor you've
5:34 · discovered but yes the childcolithic
5:35 · period is some of the earliest uses of
5:37 · copper but before bronze smelting had
5:39 · become widespread and yes it's something
5:41 · that comes in gradually while we're
5:43 · talking about copper this is going to be
5:45 · one of the things that is most
5:46 · significant in the history of Cyprus and
5:49 · while we're not entirely sure of the
5:50 · original etymology for name Cyprus it
5:53 · might have been in reference to copper
5:54 · in later centuries Latin speakers would
5:57 · refer to Copper as the metal of Cyprus
6:00 · Cut Pro hence it's still CU on the
6:03 · periodic table and this is one of the
6:05 · reasons Cyprus was so significant in the
6:07 · Bronze Age as the supply of this
6:09 · incredibly precious resource the lubrin
6:12 · Shipwreck off the coast of turkey which
6:14 · is one of the most significant finds we
6:15 · have in terms of understanding trade
6:17 · relationships in the later Bronze Age
6:18 · the ship may have sailed for a port on
6:21 · Cyprus or possibly on the Syrian Coast
6:23 · but it contained 10 tons of copper which
6:26 · was mostly or entirely from Cyprus as
6:29 · well as some cypriot Patriot lamps now I
6:31 · like I'm talking down to my audience
6:33 · here if I have to specify that bronze is
6:35 · an ally of copper and Tin but there's
6:37 · every possibility that the average
6:38 · person doesn't know that and just bear
6:39 · in mind that the mixture is normally
6:41 · about 88 to 12 copper to Tin so you are
6:45 · needing plenty of copper to go into that
6:46 · mixture
6:48 · but we are getting ahead of ourselves
6:49 · winding back to the chalcolithic a
6:51 · second at this early stage we have a
6:54 · snapshot of this culture at lemper again
6:56 · it's another cypriot site that has been
6:58 · reconstructed which is always a massive
7:00 · treat these are the hot circles that
7:02 · have survived now the people at lemper
7:04 · are doing all kinds they're cultivating
7:06 · seeds but they're also hunting and
7:08 · fishing and much to my surprise they're
7:10 · also great manufacturers of Jerry cans
7:13 · yeah all this nearly 5 000 years before
7:15 · we'd synthesize plastic in modern times
7:17 · truly an advanced civilization lemper
7:20 · was abandoned around 2400 BC when we're
7:24 · well into the Bronze Age and based on
7:27 · the art we find the culture on Cyprus is
7:29 · flourishing few highlights we have these
7:32 · rather surreal plank figurines from
7:34 · around this time these are overly
7:36 · stylized figures that may be the focus
7:38 · of worship particularly in regards to
7:40 · fertility there's all sorts going
7:42 · artistically this is red polished wear
7:45 · with in size decorations you can see
7:47 · these cuts are made before the fire
7:48 · process but added to this there are so
7:51 · many examples of cypriot pottery in many
7:53 · lyrical and playful shapes such as this
7:55 · incised pots with creatures around it in
7:58 · fact this elaborate method of ringing a
8:00 · pot with creatures and forms around the
8:01 · rim crops up all over they get pretty
8:04 · wild now it's one thing having trade
8:06 · with Goods flowing in and out but as we
8:08 · get to the later Bronze Age in the
8:10 · Aegean you have powerful Maritime
8:12 · cultures starting to have an outsized
8:14 · influence on Cyprus for example the
8:17 · exact relationship of the Minoans with
8:19 · their surrounding area is difficult for
8:21 · us to characterize we don't know if they
8:24 · were engaging in hostile action to
8:25 · establish power bases beyond the island
8:27 · of Crete if it was like a form of Bronze
8:30 · Age gunboat diplomacy or maybe they
8:33 · extended their influence entirely
8:34 · peacefully but on Cyprus their presence
8:36 · is only too apparent in the language
8:38 · being used and by around 1 500 we have a
8:41 · script called cyprominoan which Bears a
8:44 · striking resemblance to the minoan
8:45 · linear a script which sadly also means
8:48 · untranslated you've got minoan style
8:51 · jewelry being made you've got Pottery
8:54 · both imported and influenced from all
8:56 · around in ways that I've had to cut for
8:58 · time but for example check out these
9:00 · octopus pots this is a style that
9:02 · emerges on Crete after the eruption of
9:04 · Thera and may represent changing
9:06 · attitudes towards the sea and we're
9:08 · finding these on Cyprus as well and it's
9:10 · no surprise at all that given its
9:11 · location Cyprus was seeing a Brisk
9:14 · Maritime trade and the Proto version of
9:16 · lanaka was the ancient city of kittion
9:18 · which was a significant port on the
9:20 · south of the island this here is part of
9:22 · a temple complex as well as an external
9:24 · fortifying wall and only a couple of
9:27 · blocks away in lanika sadly through
9:29 · locked Gates but you can get a glimpse
9:30 · at the Port of kittian this is where the
9:32 · waterline originally came to we already
9:35 · mentioned the minoan influence on the
9:36 · island but if you know anything about
9:38 · this time and place you've already
9:39 · guessed that the Mycenaeans were not far
9:41 · behind
9:43 · and again we struggle to characterize
9:45 · just to what extent they are calling the
9:47 · shots on the island if it's more
9:49 · collaborative with the locals I mean we
9:51 · are pretty confident in the
9:52 · characterization of the Mycenaeans being
9:53 · warlike and enthusiastic about Conquest
9:56 · but the degree to which they're
9:58 · controlling life on Cyprus or whether
10:00 · they're just another influence is hard
10:02 · to tell definitively we certainly have a
10:04 · lot of pottery showing up in a very
10:05 · distinctive Mycenaean style or whatever
10:07 · the case a flurry of activity including
10:09 · the building of the cyclopian wars a
10:11 · kitten seems to coincide with a greater
10:13 · influx of Mycenaeans around the 1100s BC
10:16 · not far away and just a couple of
10:19 · hundred yards from the Neolithic site of
10:20 · Calabasas are the ruins of calabasos iOS
10:23 · Demetrius now while this is just a
10:26 · fraction of it it appears to have been a
10:28 · planned settlement with parallel streets
10:30 · running north to south and what you're
10:32 · mainly seeing in this footage is the
10:34 · ominously titled building X which may
10:37 · well have been an administrative center
10:38 · for the region on the left what has been
10:41 · labeled the pithos hall had the remains
10:43 · of around 50 huge pithoid jars we're
10:46 · pretty sure containing olive oil and
10:48 · this could have been a major storage
10:50 · Depot containing up to 33 000 liters of
10:54 · oil
10:55 · you also have the site of encomi round
10:58 · on the east coast and while you can see
11:00 · extensive ruins from the Bronze Age
11:02 · settlement it's really the wealth of
11:04 · vines that sets and Comey apart it was
11:06 · one of the most significant Port
11:07 · settlements on the island it's east
11:09 · facing Coast making it the focus of
11:11 · trade coming in from the Levant and as
11:13 · well as these influences showing up from
11:15 · Mesopotamia we've also got some quite
11:17 · unbelievable Ivory finds in the tombs
11:20 · around and Toby there are some pretty
11:22 · phenomenal luxury goods and circulation
11:24 · here I mean take for example this gaming
11:26 · box this has to be some of the most
11:29 · remarkable ancient treasure found on the
11:31 · whole island and the fact that it's
11:33 · something this beautiful intricate and
11:35 · it's not part of religious worship or
11:38 · some Monumental Royal tune necessarily
11:40 · just a beautiful gaming box a Leisure
11:44 · item with which to socialize and have
11:46 · fun we also have a lot of mice and
11:48 · InStyle pottery from here and there's a
11:51 · truly spectacular level of copper
11:53 · working going on I mean just look at the
11:55 · workmanship on this for example finally
11:57 · on the opposite side on the west coast a
11:59 · little ways Beyond modern pathos ma is
12:02 · an intriguing sight as it's a late
12:04 · Bronze Age site which may have been
12:06 · founded by myself settlers or even
12:08 · refugees arriving from Greece they built
12:12 · a cyclopian wall to fortify themselves
12:14 · on this Promontory now I know it doesn't
12:15 · look like much you're gonna have to be a
12:17 · little generous with your imagination
12:19 · you can see the gate is actually set at
12:21 · a right angle to the walls as a
12:23 · defensive feature you can also see on
12:25 · this plan some of the dwellings at Mar
12:26 · which are pretty elaborate for the time
12:29 · they're kind of similar to the sort of
12:30 · Megara that you would find on Mainland
12:32 · Greece but occupation at Mar was fairly
12:34 · short-lived Haven by 1150 it had been
12:37 · burnt and Abandoned and if you're
12:40 · unaware of what was happening elsewhere
12:42 · in the Mediterranean
12:44 · a minor Cascade of disasters known as
12:46 · the Bronze Age collapse was taking place
12:48 · it appears while on the one hand the
12:51 · collapse of trade routes in the Eastern
12:52 · Mediterranean must have had a
12:54 · significant effect on the island at
12:56 · kittian and in other places we actually
12:57 · have a continuity of settlement at a
13:00 · time when the major mycene settlements
13:02 · on the Greek mainland for example had
13:03 · gone up in smoke is Demetrius a
13:06 · settlement appears to end possibly
13:08 · because the trade that existed in the
13:09 · Bronze Age had dried up and the demand
13:11 · for copper which had Once Driven
13:13 · activity at the settlement no longer
13:14 · existed now after the Bronze Age we're
13:17 · gonna have to do this as a bit of a
13:18 · speed run because pretty much every
13:20 · major Empire has a crack at controlling
13:23 · Cyprus during this period we start off
13:25 · with the Phoenicians the exact level of
13:28 · influence they had in the island is not
13:29 · clear but they established themselves
13:30 · around kittian and you can see some of
13:32 · the alterations they made to the site
13:33 · you definitely see the influences on
13:35 · cypriot Art when placed side by side
13:37 · with Phoenician art and perhaps most
13:39 · significantly you see a change in the
13:41 · language Now The Phoenician alphabet is
13:43 · a big enough deal in itself as it went
13:45 · on to be copied and adapted by the
13:47 · Greeks and then the Romans ended up
13:49 · copying the Greeks
13:50 · there is also another language being
13:52 · used alongside Phoenician called
13:53 · cyprosyllabic which I don't have a ton
13:55 · of time to get into you can see both
13:57 · writing styles on this Steely
14:00 · we also know for a later inscription
14:01 · from the Assyrian King Essa Haddon but
14:03 · far from Cyprus being a single entity it
14:06 · was controlled by a series of Kingdoms
14:08 · which were a bit more like city-states
14:11 · so a change to one or two does not
14:13 · automatically indicate a change to all
14:17 · what we do know is the Phoenicians who
14:19 · by the end of about 700 BC were vassals
14:22 · of this Syrian Empire they called on
14:24 · their Assyrian overlords to assist them
14:26 · in putting down rebellions on Cyprus it
14:29 · seems after this that Assyrian rule
14:31 · would become more direct as in the 600s
14:33 · BC we have recordings of 10 cypriot
14:35 · Kings both refitting Sr haddon's Army
14:38 · and also assisting with mustering Asha
14:40 · banapal's Army for a conflict in Egypt
14:42 · now these are the sort of things that
14:44 · Assyrians would expect of their Allied
14:46 · rulers so by then we're probably looking
14:49 · at more direct Assyrian control rather
14:51 · than just vicarious rule through the
14:53 · Phoenicians but soon there was another
14:55 · status quo shift Cyprus had always had
14:58 · close links with Egypt this cuneiform
15:00 · tablet from 1 350 BC was written for the
15:04 · Pharaoh and a distinctive Egyptian style
15:06 · was already a feature of many examples
15:08 · of cypriot Art
15:10 · sometime around or after 570 BC Pharaoh
15:14 · a masses or ahmos II either conquered or
15:18 · at least claimed to have control of the
15:20 · island our source for this is Herodotus
15:22 · so you've always got to squint of those
15:24 · anyway no need to hold your breath or if
15:26 · you do you'll only have to hold it for
15:27 · less than 50 years because by 525 the
15:31 · island was under the control of the
15:32 · Ackerman of Persians now it appears the
15:35 · island was surrendered to the Persians
15:37 · perhaps seeing the way the winds were
15:39 · blowing and you know not least because
15:40 · not far away on the mainland most the
15:42 · Phoenicians had already done so
15:45 · control of the islands characterized as
15:47 · quite a light touch you know the pairing
15:49 · of tribute which seems to chime with how
15:51 · the after minutes were treating and lost
15:53 · their territories in the 500s
15:55 · however what's always particularly
15:57 · difficult with Cyprus is not to take
15:59 · away all the agency from the population
16:01 · in Antiquity and say everything is
16:05 · derivative and influenced from the
16:06 · outside or to flip the opposite way and
16:08 · try and argue that foreign rule never
16:10 · really stuck and everything is
16:11 · autothenous the truth of course is
16:14 · somewhere in the middle the best way to
16:16 · describe this is that while yes you can
16:18 · point to all manner of influences from
16:20 · all points of the compass East Syria
16:23 · South to Egypt West the peloponnese and
16:26 · North to Anatolia the syncretism and
16:29 · fusion of all these influences on Cyprus
16:30 · would produce a unique Hot House culture
16:33 · the likes of which was not matched
16:34 · anywhere else in the same way outside
16:37 · influence and internal conflict all
16:38 · persisted into the 400s as control of
16:41 · Cyprus went back and forth between those
16:43 · with Greek sympathies and the Persians
16:45 · reasserting control as the internal
16:47 · kingdoms fought sometimes with Persian
16:49 · help but wind forward to around 333 BC
16:53 · and Alexander the Great is tearing
16:55 · through the Persians and the cypriot
16:57 · kingdoms renewed their Rebellion against
16:58 · the Persians and put the formerly
17:00 · Persian navy at Alexander's disposal and
17:02 · even helped out with the siege of Tire
17:05 · we haven't spoken much about the Greek
17:08 · influence now you need to put some
17:09 · mental asterisks next to that idea as
17:12 · there was nothing resembling a United
17:14 · Greece but the Greeks were particularly
17:16 · Keen to spread their Maritime Empire
17:18 · from ma to Marseille this was not a
17:21 · centralized controlled higher but rather
17:23 · a network of connections where culture
17:25 · and particularly language unified a
17:28 · network of colonies and trade we already
17:30 · mentioned the minoan then Mycenaean
17:33 · dominance of the islands and this had a
17:35 · long lasting impact on the culture in
17:37 · all through the first lady BC there's
17:38 · still Greek influence coming through the
17:40 · art but after the conquests of Alexander
17:43 · the Great we enter what is described as
17:44 · the Hellenic period on the island
17:47 · the Royal tombs at salamis were locked
17:49 · so there was a limited view we could get
17:51 · those are slightly earlier they're from
17:53 · about the seven to six hundreds BC we
17:55 · think with Summer's latest maybe 300s
17:57 · and some as early as the 1100s one of
17:59 · the most remarkable monuments from the
18:00 · Hellenistic era and pretty much just on
18:02 · Cyprus in general the tombs of the Kings
18:05 · just outside pathos parentheses no Kings
18:08 · actually buried there as far as we can
18:09 · tell but just the diversity of burials
18:11 · in the rocks from the site is remarkable
18:13 · from Monumental Rock Cut tombs with
18:16 · incredibly Grand features at the purpose
18:18 · of many appears to be imitations of
18:20 · houses mirroring a common ancient
18:22 · practice of tombs being seen as very
18:24 · literal houses for the dead and perhaps
18:26 · unsurprisingly the plots also got used
18:28 · as a refuge first for Christians in the
18:30 · second and third centuries and later as
18:32 · dwellings into the medieval period also
18:34 · a surprising find from the holistic
18:36 · period the kyrenia Shipwreck is the
18:38 · remains of a ship that sank off the
18:40 · North Coast of Cyprus around kyrenia we
18:43 · know it had stopped off in roads Koss
18:45 · and Samos it was carrying Main the m4a
18:48 · of wine and a large quantity of almonds
18:50 · and based on the date of the wood of the
18:52 · hull versus the dating of the almonds it
18:54 · seemed like the ship was getting on a
18:56 · bit in age the trees that made the hull
18:58 · were felt around 100 years before the
19:00 · day it sank and because the hull Timbers
19:03 · have survived remarkably well we can
19:05 · actually look at some of the repairs
19:06 · that were being made and the whole thing
19:08 · has taught us a considerable amount
19:10 · about shipbuilding techniques from this
19:11 · period
19:13 · while there had been an initial scuffle
19:15 · to see which of Alexander's successors
19:17 · would control Cyprus it became part of
19:19 · the ptolemaic sphere along with Egypt
19:21 · Cyprus was a valuable source of both
19:23 · copper and Timber and during this time
19:25 · the old languages of Cyprus including
19:28 · the use of Phoenician gradually Fade Out
19:30 · of use together with the old cypriot
19:32 · syllabic script which was replaced by
19:34 · the Greek alphabet well like just about
19:37 · everyone in the Eastern Mediterranean
19:38 · Cyprus would have to contend with the
19:40 · rapid expansion of Rome there's a fair
19:42 · amount to see from the successive
19:43 · centuries of Roman rule on Cyprus they
19:45 · established pathos as a capital and you
19:47 · can see from the extensive ruins as well
19:49 · as all the mosaics there just how
19:51 · prosperous it was on the other side of
19:54 · the island its Premier Eastern facing
19:56 · port at salamis was also flourishing you
19:58 · can see there from the baths the theater
20:00 · and the Forum the New Testament
20:02 · describes Paul and Barnabas landing at
20:04 · salamis and then traveling around the
20:06 · island before arriving at paphos and
20:08 · though it's not in the accounts of the
20:09 · New Testament there is a tradition that
20:10 · Barnabas was later stoned at Salamis the
20:13 · monastery nearby has a couple of tombs
20:15 · one of which may have belonged to
20:17 · Barnabas gonna Reserve judgment on the
20:19 · authenticity there
20:21 · we know of several earthquakes that hit
20:23 · Cyprus and after the earthquake of 76
20:26 · A.D hit Curry on particularly badly Rome
20:28 · sent a large fund for its reconstruction
20:30 · they were also particularly destructive
20:33 · earthquakes around the island in the
20:34 · 300s and the one in 365 caused severe
20:37 · damage to most the settlements in the
20:39 · island but these are just a handful of
20:41 · Destruction events in several centuries
20:43 · that appear to be very peaceful and
20:45 · prosperous don't have a particularly
20:47 · spectacular Cliffhanger to leave this
20:48 · account on other than to press pause
20:50 · until the part 2 is up and on the next
20:52 · one how the Byzantine population of the
20:54 · island would interact with Islamic
20:56 · invasions Crusaders venetians Ottomans
20:59 · and how the modern State took shape into
21:01 · the 20th century so definitely check
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21:16 · [Music]
21:18 · foreign

This is the output from the newfangled version of the doodad. It still relies on the transcript generated by YouTube, but drops the time index (which is handy, I think) and puts in line breaks. You'll notice there's no punctuation? That's missing in the original as well.

Transcript

[Music] foreign [Music] part of our rundown on the history of Cyprus it was
perhaps in the third month of writing this script that I realized we might
have over faced ourselves with this one getting from the pre-pottery Neolithic
to the Romans in the last episode was just about manageable because our knowledge
of the ancient world is always going to be a bit fragmentary but having already
promised to do this in previous videos we are now attempting to cover the time
period that could easily be four or five videos into just the one it means
that we're gonna have to be a lot more brief than I usually like to be and
we're mainly doing this through the lens of what there is still to see of the
last 1500 years of History the many historical sites you can visit in Cyprus
that give us a window into the cultures that build them so beginning where
we left off last time [Music] we have a bad habit particularly in England of
treating the 400s A.D as a world-ending apocalypse the Romans are leaving England
Rome itself is quote falling and while it's true there was considerable unrest
in Western Europe during this time it ignores the fact that that wasn't the
story everywhere and in the eastern half of Mediterranean it was not without
drama sure but particularly for Cyprus not much more drama than the century
following or the century previous locally it appears that life carried on for
the most part as normal for Roman sites such as Korean Pathos and salamis we
don't have a huge wealth of information from this time in specific and I'm
not about to embark on a huge expose on the Eastern Roman Empire in general
that I am storing up for a huge Byzantine series that will come out in the
far-flung future I don't know maybe if you're watching this back in a few years
a little thingy will ding in the top right corner the biggest change you can
see in the landscape is the church is being built this huge Basilica at kurian
it's a little hard to make out from the ground as it rarely survives at more
than about waist height but you soon realize this was a significant structure
getting on for 75 meters long and about that wide if you include the atrium
and other structures are butting the main structure built in the 400s and expanded
in the 500s and there's still various elements you can see on the ground including
the baptistry and probably the most recognizable structure on the site the
surviving arches of the diaconicon in pathos there's a similarly impressive
Basilica now this one is a bit harder to pass because this size is actually
Four churches from different eras the ones we're currently concerned with have
these later churches built on top of them also the site was not actually open
when I got there so I had to just do my best taking shots around the perimeter
but you can see the vast mosaics that covered the floor and you can see from
the schematic here that following the expansion the 500s the original church
almost tripled in size these were huge building projects for the time and would
have obviously involved considerable effort and expense to construct and decorate
some more Byzantine Church architecture from this era the monastery of Saint
Barnabas has an incredibly early Foundation date potentially as early as 477
A.D with expansions in in the mid-500s under Justinian however at some point
in the Middle Ages the monastery had been abandoned and become ruinous and
in the mid 1700s some considerable restoration and reconstruction was done
so while the original structure may have looked somewhat like the current I
can't make any promises there just outside lanaka in the small village of kitty
now this is quite something the Church of the Virgin Mary which has mosaics
dating back to the 500s which by the way is pretty unusual we don't have many
Mosaic survival from this era especially not ecclesiastical ones you can thank
the iconoclasts for that but there's a Twist the church structure you can see
here dates from the 10 to 1100s this apps was actually incorporated into the
newer structure because the first church to house this house with its mosaics
was destroyed but okay you can't help but notice an ominous pattern of these
once Grand structures being destroyed and we can't really keep the next bit
of the story from you any longer the island experienced raids from Arabic Army
in about six four nine both Korean and salamis had never fully recovered since
the earthquakes of the late 300s A.D both have been rebuilt on a smaller scale
with some sections left in Ruins while the Arab raids led to these sites being
abandoned entirely this is actually where the story gets even more remarkable
you see this pattern happened to many other islands in the Mediterranean for
the next several hundred years Malta Crete Sicily were all vulnerable to the
rising Islamic powers on the Arabian and North African coasts but what makes
Cyprus so unique in 688 Justinian II managed to negotiate an agreement with
the caliph Abdel Malik that Cyprus would be jointly ruled as a minion now in
the history of the various conflicts between the byzantines and Islamic armies
This is highly unusual neither side was in a sharing mood when it came to conquests
and looking at the wider picture it may be because after a failed Siege of
Constantinople by murwir the first which caused him to expand huge amounts
of resources in men and ships the Amaya dissolved into the second Muslim Civil
War seeing huge upheaval across the caliphate so being able to free up men
and resources from Cyprus would have been a much needed boost in the short
term but what is more surprising is that this agreement on Cyprus actually
held there's scarcely a pause in the fight in between the umayyad followed
by the Abbasid against the byzantines in theaters all over from Armenia to
Carthage but somehow the agreement to jointly rule the island remained as with
many of the early Islamic conquests in the Mediterranean there is little to
nothing to show you architecturally from this period all Islamic architecture
I could show you from Cyprus is later ottoman stuff later attempts by the byzantines
to take the island back from around the 800s under basil the first were ultimately
unsuccessful but in 965 it was reconquered and made into a theme for the uninitiated
that's a form of Byzantine Regional Administration now amongst other things
the centuries of comparative isolation Cyprus had experience from the rest
of the Empire contributed towards the unique cypriot Greek dialect again not
as much as we'd like to show you from this era though its architecture was
shaped over so many different periods the church of Saint Lazarus was founded
between the eight to nine hundreds and between the 12 1500s this Gothic Portico
was added the bell tower is particularly striking but sadly not particularly
ancient the original Bell Tower was destroyed by the Ottomans early in their
years of control on the islands so this is a rebuild from around 1857. among
the ruins of Roman pathos the former Roman Fort was bolstered by additional
fortifications nowadays not looking too healthy themselves known as The Fortress
of the 40 columns most of what you're seeing are later editions in a part of
the story we've not quite reached yet in fact virtually every fortification
the byzantines built or utilized would be augmented by later Empires to the
point of being unrecognizable case in point will Circle back to kyrenia Castle
when we talk about the venetians but you can see that these massive walls are
very clearly designed with cannonballs in mind and centuries later however
buried within all of this is the church of Saint George now before the Venetian
fortifications absorbed it this church would have been outside the Byzantine
later Frankish fortification it's from around the 1100s and it's pretty magical
you reach it through a tunnel in the castle walls and you find yourself in
a chamber with Corinthian columns and a high Dome ceiling it's a wonder this
wasn't just demolished and it must have been quite special for the largely
Catholic venetians to incorporate it within their expanded Castle structure
we already mentioned the church at kitty that was rebuilt into the current
form in the 10 to 1100s the Church of is f staphyus at colossi is one from
the 1100s it's overlooked by the Frankish castle and we're getting there don't
worry but this is a survive from before that time though it received some modifications
in the 1400s there were rebellions in 1042 and 1092 by local Governors on the
island but significant change was not until 1191 and it all happened rather
suddenly Richard the first of England well normally really landed on the island
and came to blows with the governor Isaac con menos it was a rather colorful
episode on route to the Third Crusade Richard was looking for his sister and
fiancee I should point out two different women thankfully otherwise you after
a storm had separated the fleet and wrecked some ships on Cyprus Isaac took
both the women captive which is perhaps not a great move considering their
brother and future husband had a large expeditionary force that had already
taken a chunk of Sicily on their way to Palestine thanks to a spout with tonkred
so Richard took the aisle which wasn't an original objective of the Crusades
so it left him in a bit of a funny position he obviously wasn't going to just
stay and Rule personally I mean he'd barely spent much time on another obscure
medieval Island that he'd inherited as part of his Holdings called England
and much like England the idea was Richard would use Cyprus to supply his crusading
exhibition with taxes but there were on the island pretty quickly so essentially
the first opportunity he sold the island to the ninth Templar however they
weren't able to quell the Revolt either so the Templars resold the island to
ghee of Lucio all of this was the beginning of a very different chapter for
Cyprus one where it will be ruled by Western European powers can't say this
was a great thing for the local cypriot population ghee turned Cyprus into
a feudal society inviting Barons from Palestine who'd lost land to Saladin
to control large Estates and use the local population as serfs but while the
remaining Crusader Kingdoms in the Levant would soon dissolve and Frankish
power in Byzantine Holdings in Greece would rise and fall in the wake of The
Fourth Crusade Cyprus would remain as a unique Fusion of Byzantine and Frankish
cultures you can see it in the church architecture from this time gothic arches
alongside Byzantine abscess now the island of Cyprus was significant but not
exactly thriving there's a succession of Kings with less than flattering epithets
several being labeled the fat and in one example the pope describing John II
as a vile evil sloth and not unlike many other greek-speaking Islands in this
era Cyprus became somewhat beholden to the conflict between the venetians and
genoes is a topic far too huge to properly disentangle here and while the Lucio
house would remain on the throne of Cyprus they really weren't holding all
the cards now it's become clear that I've got way too many sites to fit in
what is still supposed to be a summary video we may have to Circle back one
day and do a separate video on Cyprus in this period but a quick look at some
of the castles on the island the Byzantine fortifications at kyrenia were expanded
by the Lucio in 1208 to 1211 you can still see some Gothic and earlier architecture
in the courtyard but we're still not ready to look at kyrenia as it really
only took its current shape when the venetians get here if you visit Cyprus
you can see a selection of comparatively diminutive castles that were built
around this time to maintain local control Limassol I'm afraid we didn't actually
make it too personally so here's a pic the location of lanika had been significant
on Cyprus all the way back to the Bronze Age with the port of kitty and you
can see that in the previous episode but it was during the kingdom of Cyprus
that its fortifications got a significant upgrade to approximately what you
see now if you ignore the minaret for a moment this was sometime between 1382
to 1398 over pathos the Byzantine fortifications at the harbor had suffered
significant damage in an earthquake in 1222 and it was remodeled under the
Lucio as well as some other structures which haven't survived what you're seeing
here is the Western Tower which was built in the 1200s but just bear in mind
there's Venetian and then ottoman additions to the structure as well finally
for now colossi Castle now unlike the others this hasn't been encroached on
by a major city in a form that more closely resembles like a stocky Norman
keep its original construction dates to the 1210s although it had a major reconstruction
in 1454 by the hospitals Cyprus has two particularly spectacular Gothic Cathedrals
though as it happens these are both on the Northern side of the line these
days so if you're squinting at the minarets yeah no shock those weren't part
of the original plan in Nicosia you have what was formerly the Saint Sophia
Cathedral now known as the saleemia Kami had to film this through gritted teeth
not because I have a B in my Bonnet about its later conversion to a mosque
but oh nothing makes a shot ugly quite like scaffolding and look I know historic
buildings need care and attention from time to time but gosh darn it if you
couldn't just say that till about five minutes after I've got decent coverage
that'd be great thanks we think the foundation stone of this structure was
laid around 1209 but the construction process was a long one and while it was
partly done by the end of the 1200s a couple of major earthquakes didn't help
and Pope Clement IV issued a papal bull in 1347 which nope still didn't get
it finished and yes this is the cathedral in famagusta now known as the Lala
Mustafa Pasha mosque built between 1298 to about 1312. now since the kingdom
of Cyprus covers nearly 300 years of which a lot of architecture survives if
we can just take a vertical slice of what was going on on the island by taking
a look around some of the many ruins of famagusta because the sheer variety
of churches is quite telling you have both Catholic and Orthodox Churches being
built such as the two churches of George referred to as of the Latins and of
the Greeks respectively to differentiate them while the ruins of Saint George
of the Latins built around the end of the 1200s are particularly striking so
George of the Greeks dating to around 1300 despite its ruinous state is quite
something not least because of the height at which it survives the surviving
Dome of the apps particularly stands out we'll get to why there's a load of
Cannonball damage and a noticeable lack of a roof later there's the ruined
shell of a Franciscan Monastery just down the road the twin churches we're
not 100 but we think they belong to the Templar and Hospitality orders and
a little further still The Armenian Church a little further still The Armenian
Church a little small and rather overshadowed by the Carmelite church next
door there's also the nestorian church and if you know what that means then
congratulations to either a Seminary Student or a black belt in church crawling
and the Maronite Church people seem to agree that the church of Saint Anne
looks like an owl and what could I possibly add to that and also just a ton
more both in Byzantine and Gothic architectural conventions it's not to say
that Cyprus was some sort of paradise of religious toleration necessarily but
with a mixture of people groups from all around the Eastern Mediterranean bolstered
by a population from the Levant as the Crusader States contracted and fell
there's clearly a Melting Pot of many Christian Traditions converging on the
island now when we get to the second half of the 1400s you end up in a weird
political situation on Cyprus as we get to the penultimate King as James II
of Cyprus he had married a Venetian Catherine of coronaro which probably one
of the most strategic marriages he could have hoped for with himself having
usurp the throne but Catherine was 14 at the time of their Union and didn't
travel to Cyprus until four years later in 1472 and it must be an absolute
and complete coincidence that James II died a few months later after her arrival
there is no chance at all Venice put out a hit on him wink the timing is not
even remotely suspicious nor is it slightly suspicious their child who would
have been James III also died before his first birthday nothing at all to see
here so Catherine remained as the queen of Cyprus till 1489 during which time
Venice had effective control over the island but eventually with both the Ottomans
and neapolitans eyeing a takeover Venice decided to take a more Hands-On approach
and gave Catherine a huge going away party to basically sell the island to
The Republic she was definitely not into it but also essentially had no choice
so all of a sudden the Republic of Venice had control of a colony a long way
from the Rialto and they seemed acutely aware of just how vulnerable their
hold on the island was Cyprus was easily the furthest flung of all of their
Holdings and at a time when the Ottomans had swept through the Balkans and
much of the Eastern Mediterranean with a staggering confidence following the
fall of Constantinople you can see from the extent of the Venetian fortifications
on the island just how precarious their hold was and yes the island was subject
to many ottoman raids during this time please don't hate but either this episode
clocks in at about an hour and takes six months to make or we Outsource the
details to some more specific videos and wouldn't you know we are right on
the cusp of releasing a bunch of episodes on the Venetian Republic so brief
tour and then we'll keep this moving we've kept teasing kyrenia and both the
Waterfront and the current form of the castle is largely a product of the venetians
the frankly absurd big walls could only be constructed for the age of gunpowder
it's a beautiful structure in brief the huge round Towers in the Northwest
and Southeast are the ends of the Venetian upgrade which were most substantively
on the landward side with this big Square Bastion in the middle the harbor
layout too it definitely put me in mind of harnia on Crete you can see the
chain Tower here from which a chain was stretched across the harbor for defense
attached at the other end to this there's other Venetian details too like this
Warehouse however the venetians were perhaps understandably a bit selective
about where they built vast defensive walls and quite a few coastal towns at
the time like lanika Limassol and pathos were defended with little more than
the small thoughts that the Lucio had built however the venetians did build
a network of towers to signal in case of an attack such as this rather lovely
Survivor to the west of lanika in the center of the island and with its most
important Cathedral Nicosia had walls that are simultaneously impressive but
not quite impressive enough no good in theory not so much in execution I mean
they're not very high and spoiler alert spoilers from history Nicosia threw
an absolute Mast class of bad leadership fell within about 40 days of being
besieged by the Ottomans stand out on the island and the site the Venetian
Garrison would make their final stands during the Ottoman assault famagusta
is an unbelievably well preserved set of Venetian fortifications almost certainly
the most complete Venetian fortification system anywhere and goodness knows
we've seen a few unsettled series teaser Ahoy other than the huge walls and
bastions the fact they haven't turned the ditch into parking spaces and Tennis
Courts which is what happens absolutely everywhere else it's a minor miracle
we will explore them properly soon I promise but after holding on against the
Autumn attack for 11 months famagusta Fell in 1571. This is where the ottoman
period on the island begins and not to be glib but characterizing this time
period is difficult I mean sure no area with a predominantly Christian tradition
is likely to enjoy Islamic rule though I can hear Bosnia loudly clearing its
throat and vice versa now you ask 10 different people they'll give you 10 different
answers I mean for starters the ottomans are building infrastructure this Aqueduct
outside lanika is pretty impressive in scale and there are several pieces of
it a couple of kilometers away it's a major project similarly while it's just
a surviving fragment of the cilitar aqueduct in Nicosia that was another major
undertaking that brought water from the mountains in pathos you can see the
remains of two sets of baths a short distance from each other the first one
is just on the perimeter of the Chrysler Pulitzer Basilica site and it's a
little bit worse for wear it may have originally been built during the Frankish
rule but then the Ottomans restored the domes then just a minute stroll away
these ottoman baths are quite an impressive height although with some ruined
sections and not entirely dissimilate though slightly overshadowed by the gorgeously
melancholic ruined churches in the town you can see the ottoman Bart in paragusta
as well these are the kapha passionats built in around 1601. we have quite
a number of mosques and minarets surviving now we spent an entire episode looking
at how ottoman architecture in Greece is lucky to have made it into the 21st
century as a lot has been demolished or left to crumble but on Cyprus there's
still a fair amount of Islamic architecture still visible and not just in the
north there's the Yami Kabir mosque in lanika which was formerly a church that
was built in the 1500s not far away there's also the zuhari mosque this was
undergoing renovation when we were there uncertain Foundation date but we know
it was definitely there in the 1600s I actually deserve a slap on the wrist
for this one because by the lake is the which we ended up missing if you could
just cut some slack for a moment we had only three days in the South to try
and cover everything whatever you say about us if you watch the videos on our
Channel you definitely can't accuse us of not staying busy Paco itineraries
as tight as they will go this one we just never quite got to so all I've got
is this shaky footage from the car sorry everyone around Nicosia even on the
southern side of the line are several mosques slash finnerets visible and almost
Square in the middle the boyak Han is this beautiful covered Marketplace that
the Ottomans constructed in 1572 shortly after their Conquest it actually started
as a caravan Sarai or a type of covered Inn which is more common in the Middle
East and as well as rooms around the outside it had this mosque in the middle
as already mentioned across the line the north there's the two former Cathedrals
and in both cases the gothic fabric of the building was pretty much left as
is with minarets added and some other modifications inside something people
usually like to forget about the Ottomans they did largely leave the Christian
population free to practice across the Empire they seem to realize that attempting
to Stamp Out the church would compel local populations into a life or death
struggle to the last man whereas having the church where they could keep an
eye on it and basically intact the form of administrational structure for the
Christian population was infinitely easier the status of Cyprus as an ottoman
Administration unit wavered back and forth in ways that are difficult to make
sense of unless you're accustomed to the unique practices and terminology of
the Ottoman governance to put all of this in context the ottoman period on
the island was bookended by atrocities in the Conquering of the island they
went particularly berserk in Nicosia slaughtering the entire population with
no one left alive except for the enslaved women and children in famagusta after
the siege lasting nearly a year the city was originally surrendered on quite
favorable terms for the Venetian Defenders but for reasons that are not entirely
clear Mustafa Pasha suddenly appeared to change his mind and proceeded to not
only kill the commander Marco Antonio bragadin in about the most Ott way possible
but also slaw to all of the remaining Christian population in the city pretty
Grim stuff wind forward from the 1500s to the early 1800s and after the Greek
Revolution was announced in 1821 literature was distributed on Cyprus in an
attempt to germinate the revolution there too and the ottoman Governors began
executing Bishops and hundreds of other Greek cypriots by all accounts the
Bishops made no attempt at armed resistance and in the case of Archbishop ciprianos
declined the offers of Asylum by European consoles even knowing his life was
in grave danger he was hanged on July 9 with other Bishops beheaded soon after
sadly history shows us that over and over humans are only too willing to commit
appalling massacres both to expand their Empires and maintain their Empires
but even though attempts at Revolution were brutally suppressed on Cyprus later
in the 1800s wider geopolitical offense would overtake the situation on the
island itself in 1878 in the aftermath the russo-turkish war a secretive agreement
between the Ottomans and the British known as the Cyprus convention meant the
island passed into British Administration considering its proximity to the
British Holdings around the Suez Canal Cyprus had suddenly become a very strategic
stepping off point for the British it is worth noting that on paper it was
still an ottoman territory the British were administering but in 1914 when
the first world war broke out the Ottomans declared their allegiance with the
Central Powers and the British promptly declared Cyprus to be part of the British
Empire there were hopes that the British would be sympathetic of the hopes
among the greek-speaking population to be reunited with the Greek State and
this wasn't as implausible as it might sound the British Empire had donated
Corfu and the ionian islands to the Greek state in 1864. but no the British
had no intention of giving up their Outpost which served as the guard house
for the most important sea Lane in the Empire now look maybe I've played myself
here I keep putting off a larger explanation of the current geopolitical situation
on Cyprus and yet here we are videos already sitting at over 20 minutes long
and without doubling the run time I don't feel like we can adequately unpick
the exact circumstance that brought us to the present state of Cyprus as we
speak the Cold War channel is going through a pretty much Blow by blur account
of the political situation pretty in-depth causality of how and who and when
so for a much wider view on it you might want to just go and check that out
we're going to try and highlight a bit of The Wider context and the events
that led directly to the war so after unrest against British rule in Cyprus
it was declared an independent state in 1960 which is not really what anyone
on the island wanted I mean Insurgency groups like aoka operated with the goal
of uniting Cyprus with Greece given both linguistic and cultural ties it's
not all that hard to see why greek-speaking cypriots would want Union with
the Greek State and for reference this idea is known as inosis however the
Greek State between 1967 and 1974 was very different to the current Democratic
Greek Republic this was the regime of the colonels a hard-right military dictatorship
it's not really an exaggeration to call them fascists they arrest at least
10 000 people in a very short space of time imprisoned thousands of them tortured
thousands of them and no shock suspended just about all the Democratic freedoms
in the country not to spoiler the ending but the conflict in Cyprus was actually
the impetus that upturned that regime on Greece but given the backdrop of not
only increasing tension between the Greek and Turkish communities on the island
but the appalling levels of Bloodshed and human sufferings occurred around
the population exchanges from Greece and Turkey made following the first World
War history shows us that displacing a population never happens peacefully
or without at least one group going through an absolute health I mean wishing
your ethnically distinct neighbors away is not a bloodless act it either leads
to a refugee crisis genocide or more commonly both so the calls from the Turkish
Community for attacks him that is the partition of the island is a little more
understandable and bearing in mind that they were numerically in a minority
I mean the 1960 census putting the Turkish cypriot population around 18 of
the Island's residents this figure has been challenged and may have been slightly
higher but not by much finally while this might seem the most irrelevant part
of all to understand European geopolitics in the second half of the 20th century
in the minds of military leaders and a great many politicians everything was
about the capitalist West versus communism things that we would assume had
little to nothing to do with the Soviet Union were all viewed through the calculus
of quote US versus the Communists the Greek military Hunter we just mentioned
was launched on the pretext of preventing a communist plot I'm gonna run out
of air quotes before this is done but all this means that whenever dealing
with Cyprus the issue of what's best for the island came a sort of distant
17th Place in the concerns of Western military planners and while it was clear
to any Outsider that the years of Insurgency and counterinsurgency with political
factions forming around the different ideals for the governance of Cyprus was
all looking rather ominous the goal was never what was best for Cyprus but
more how can we maintain an effective bullwark against communism and how can
we prevent two NATO members that's Greece and Turkey from going to war over
it so it's a mess and between a Turkish air raid and uprisings blood was being
spilled and both communities feeling less and less safe more and more they
were Keen to take our arms to protect their own and the dam finally broke in
1974 after a military coup launched jointly from Cyprus and the Greek government
deposed the Archbishop macarios who had been a leader and pivotal figure on
Cyprus since Independence but we don't have time to interrogate his various
positions and motivations the military installed Nico Sampson's president and
he was well known as part of the aoka B movement and aggressively anti-turkish
five days after the overthrow of the cypriot government turkey landed troops
on kyrenia on the morning of July 20th and if this seems like an overreaction
the very same day the Turkish Enclave in Limassol surrendered to the cypriot
Army totaling about 10 000 people and what followed Not only was the area of
the Town being burnt but there were killings and atrocities committed against
the men women and children the fighting on the island went on for just under
a month and by the time a ceasefire was broken on the 17th of August just under
40 of the island was under Turkish control the subsequent movement of refugees
totaled about 160 000 Greek cypriots and about 60 000 Turkish cypriots the
U.N buffer zone was set up to guard the line between North and South in 1983
the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was declared flag shot but received
no International recognition other than from Turkey I don't really want to
insert a conclusion here because there hasn't been one the conflict on Cyprus
is often described not as ending but as being frozen because a piece wasn't
really resolved the fighting stopped but in a manner that's not particularly
satisfactory to anyone as we mentioned in the episode Northern Cyprus today
is a pretty modern and relaxed place to live all things considered and the
Republic of Cyprus has clearly done well but what do you want you want me to
suggest what the answer is get out of here I don't what do I know like we've
spent about the last 100 years trying to figure out how to have a peaceful
Cyprus and we're still not there having seen both communities I am optimistic
it can be achieved socially politically that remains to be seen I'll be honest
I discovered as I was making these two episodes on Cyprus I really don't enjoy
making videos this broad that cover as much time as we have whenever I see
summary videos on YouTube I'm usually left with so many questions it's frustrating
not to be able to dig more substantially into different periods but if this
particular wide-angle view from the Romans to the current Republic offers us
one thing there are curious Echoes I mean the way in which Cyprus time and
time again has been influenced by European powers far to its West and above
all the fact that a power sharing group between the then Islamic forces and
Byzantine christian powers managed to hold for three of the most turbulent
centuries in the Western Mediterranean I mean that has to give us some hope
for peace and stability on Cyprus anyway the other reason I don't like this
sort of episode is the amount of time it takes to write and research and knowing
that the comments section is probably going to need its own un buffer zone
to stop people from starting a fight so next episode something far less contentious
I mean it's not like there have been any modern conflicts in Croatia that was
a joke people pipe down but yes a series that probably should have started
in 2020 on the Croatian Adriatic Coast is finally getting made so stick around
for that and look be nice to people in the comments below find the music you've
been hearing in these episodes on bandcamp.com and support us there a follow
on Twitter Instagram would go a long way and well then again at time of writing
we're almost there a thousand subscribers and it's only taken the entire lifespan
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