The Early Christian period in Cyprus: basilicas of the 5th and 6th centuries

The frame

In the chronological table of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, the Early Christian period runs from 395 to the mid-7th century, for the whole island, and the table gives no year for its end. 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. 395 is also the year in which, according to the Met's timeline for 1-500 CE, the realm of the emperor who died that year was formally divided, "the eastern half of which will come to be known as the Byzantine empire". Sources 1, 2.

Boundaries and overlaps

The number 650 on the site's navigation axis is not a date from the source but an approximation of "the mid-7th century". The Met's timeline for 500-1000 CE places the occupation of Cyprus by Arab forces in the mid-seventh century, in an entry dated ca. 647, that is, a little before 650; the Department of Antiquities page on Hala Sultan Tekke mentions raids on Cyprus in 649 and 650. Sources 1, 3, 4.

Phases of several buildings touch the limits. According to the Department of Antiquities page, the House of Dionysos at Nea Paphos was abandoned after the earthquakes of the 4th century, a century through which the boundary of 395 runs. Beneath the church of Agios Lazaros at Larnaka the remains of two earlier churches were found, which the source does not date, so they cannot be assigned to this period or to the next. Sources 5, 6.

On this site

Two articles are placed in this period. "Agios Georgios, Pegeia: three basilicas and a bath of the 6th century" presents a settlement that, according to the Department of Antiquities page, flourished in the time of Justinian I (527-565). "The Early Christian basilica at Kourion: one church, two centuries" follows a church built at the beginning of the 5th century that received new mosaics and floors in the 6th. Sources 7, 8.