the Case of the Freeper FRiva Feva is under scrutiny - super-sleuths are welcomed
come resolve the way to yesterday's Target Post, you're not out of the running yet
win your registration fees to the FRive Las Vegas Conference if you dare
Posted on 06/27/2002 9:56:23 AM PDT by Korth
NICOSIA (Reuters) - Workmen breaking ground for a new town hall stumbled across what are believed to be the 800-year-old remains of a medieval Lusignan palace in Cyprus whose exact whereabouts were a mystery for centuries.
The discovery, in the heart of the capital Nicosia, is a boon for archaeologists who enjoy a rich amount of literature from the checkered history of medieval Cyprus, but very little in the way of tangible evidence on the ground.
The Lusignans were a French noble family which ruled Cyprus from 1192 to 1489. They built three palaces in Nicosia. Only small parts of the third and last palace still stand in Turkish-held northern Nicosia.
"I suppose that yes, we have found some foundations of the palace, which was the first of the Lusignan palaces," said Pavlos Flourenzos, curator at the Cyprus Museum and deputy director of the department of antiquities.
The first palace was completed in 1211 and destroyed about 1373 in clashes with Genoese forces for control of the city.
Stone walls more than a meter thick and more than three meters high in places have been found at the site, along with fragments of pottery and wall paintings.
Little is known about the size or structure of the palace, which Flourenzos said was likely to have been built like a fortress and made of stone.
The area, roughly just larger than a football pitch and for decades used as an open air vegetable market on Saturdays, revealed what appeared to be artifacts when workmen began to dig the foundations for a new Nicosia town hall.
"We knew from before that there might be something there somewhere, but we did not exactly know where," said Flourenzos, adding that tombs dating from 800 BC had also been excavated there in the past.
The site, in an otherwise run-down area of the old city abandoned by its original residents and now a hub of workshops during the day and bars at night, was fenced off on Friday.
"Work has stopped for two weeks for excavations. We will have to assess what we have found so far," said Flourenzos.
While the island is rich in artifacts from the ancient Greek and Roman periods, its medieval history was victim to a cycle of conquerors and raids by Arabs, the crusading English King Richard I -- who gave Cyprus to the Lusignans --, the Genoans, the Venetians and the Ottomans.
the Case of the Freeper FRiva Feva is under scrutiny - super-sleuths are welcomed
come resolve the way to yesterday's Target Post, you're not out of the running yet
win your registration fees to the FRive Las Vegas Conference if you dare
Interesting story, I expect the 800BC details would be the more interesting though.
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