The Early Christian basilica at Kourion: one church, two centuries

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 Kourion, in the Episkopi area, the Early Christian basilica was built at the beginning of the 5th century. In the 6th century it underwent changes, in the course of which it received new mosaics and new opus sectile floors. Source 1.

Two phases

The source distinguishes two phases: construction at the beginning of the 5th century and alteration in the 6th. The word "new" implies that the 6th-century floors replaced earlier floors or were added to them, but the sources used here do not describe the floors of the first phase or say which parts of the church were changed. Opus sectile is the name of a flooring technique using pieces of material cut to shape. Source 1.

What can be said about the change

The question of how one church changed between the 5th and 6th centuries gets a partial answer here: it received new flooring. Why it was altered, who paid for the change, and whether its plan changed as well are questions the sources used here do not answer. What can be said with confidence is that in the 6th century the church was still standing and was being altered, some generations after it was built. The change should not be attributed to a particular event, such as an earthquake, without a source that says so. Source 1.

Placement on the timeline

Both phases lie within the Early Christian period of the Department of Antiquities table, 395 to the mid-7th century, so the article is placed there. At the same site, the Roman agora is dated in its present state to the beginning of the 3rd century CE, in the Roman period; together the two articles show Kourion in two periods of the table. Sources 2, 1.

Scope of reading: 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 excavation publications of the basilica were not read, so this page gives no plan, measurements or description of the mosaics.