Some 13km east of Limassol town centre along the resort strip, ancient Amathus lies just inland from the coast road. Low-lying Amathus is not the most evocative ruin in Cyprus, but its presence has kept resort hotels at a healthy distance, and as excavations proceed there may eventually be more to see. Limassol city bus 30 passes the site, but the nearest official stop is about 800m west; some find it more enjoyable to follow the coastal promenade on foot or bicycle, with an underpass allowing site access.
Amathus is among the oldest of Cyprus’s city-kingdoms, supposedly founded by a son of Hercules, revered as a god here. In some versions of the myth, Ariadne, fleeing from the Cretan labyrinth, was abandoned here and not on Aegean Naxos by Theseus; she than died in childbirth, and was buried in a sacred grove, where her cult melded easily with that of Aphrodite. Lightly Hellenized, and prone to worshipping Egyptian gods like Bes as well as Asiatic ones, Amathus sided with Persia against Salamis and the other Cypriot kingdoms during the fifth-and fourth-century BC revolts, though it later declared for Alexander the Great.
The Romans made it capital of one of the four administrative districts of the island; this anticipated a bishopric in Byzantine times. But decline and destruction followed the repeted Arab raids of the seventh century. And a vandalistic visit from Richard the Lionheart in 1191, and the city was largely forgotten until the eighteeth century,when its west necropolis was looted. Shotly after,some of ıts dressed stone was taken to Egypt to line the locks of the new Suez Canal , though the contractiors mostly used fresh-cut stone from a nearby quarry. The first systematic excavations occurred in 1862,1893 and 1930, thought there was no lack of plundering and in between .
Related posts:
Tags: amathus, amathus limassol, city kingdoms, cyprus's city kingdoms, limassol, limassol beaches, limassol city bus, limassol cyprus, limassol holidays, limassol hotels, limassol tourism, limassol village, richard the lionheart