Asinou: what a dated dedicatory inscription tells

The explanations distinguish finds, interpretations and open questions. Sources appear at the end of the page.

What the source says

According to the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus page on Asinou, at Nikitari in the Troodos, the dedicatory inscription of the church is dated 1105/6, and according to it the church was built with the donation of the magistros Nikephoros Ischyrios. According to the same page, the monastery was founded in 1099. Source 1.

What an inscription gives

A dedicatory inscription is written evidence from the building itself, so it anchors a date more firmly than tradition or stylistic comparison. The form 1105/6 means that the date does not narrow down to a single calendar year but to a year that spans two of them. As given on the Department of Antiquities page, the inscription names the donor and the date; the sources used here say nothing of who painted the church, what the building cost or what stood on the spot before. Source 1.

The church on the UNESCO list

The UNESCO World Heritage Centre page on the painted churches in the Troodos region lists "Panayia (The Virgin) Phorviotissa (Asinou), Nikitari" among the ten churches included in the serial inscription, dated 1985. According to the page, "important examples of the 11th century iconography" survive in the churches of St. Nicholas of the Roof and Panagia Phorbiotissa of Nikitari, and it also mentions 14th-century wall paintings at Panagia Phorbiotissa. Source 2.

Two different anchors

The two sources do not rest on the same anchor. The UNESCO page speaks of 11th-century iconography, while the dedicatory inscription, according to the Department of Antiquities page, gives 1105/6, that is, the beginning of the 12th century; the monastery, according to the same page, was founded in 1099, still in the 11th. None of the sources used here explains the difference, and this page does not decide between them. All these dates lie within the Byzantine period of the Department of Antiquities table, 965-1191, so the article is placed there; the 14th-century paintings already belong to the table's Frankish period and are a later phase of the same church. Sources 2, 1, 3.

Scope of reading: the UNESCO page on the painted churches in the Troodos was read on 24 October 2026, in short quotations. The Department of Antiquities pages cited here could not be opened for checking on 24 October 2026; the details from them follow notes taken from those pages at an earlier stage and were not re-checked. The text of the inscription itself and the research publications on the church were not read.