A history of Cyprus in dates, to make sense of what you'll see

Cypriot history goes back an extraordinarily long way, and the good news is that you can see it. Neolithic houses, Roman mosaics, painted Byzantine churches, Venetian walls, Ottoman mosques and a UN line running through the capital. Below is the story in dates, based solely on official sources I can cite, with where to see each period. For the lie of the land first, have a look at the map of Cyprus.

From Choirokoitia to the Mycenaeans

People settled here very early. Choirokoitia, in Larnaca district, ranks for UNESCO among the key prehistoric sites of the eastern Mediterranean, a village of round stone houses first settled in the 7th millennium BC. It has been World Heritage since 1998, and outside the site five reconstructed houses help a great deal in picturing the village.

Paphos has Neolithic roots too, according to UNESCO, which notes that the Mycenaeans built the temple of Aphrodite there in the 12th century BC and that it stayed in use into Roman times. By around 672 BC the kingdom of Ledra, the seed of Nicosia, was on record, the municipality says. Everything on the World Heritage list is gathered in UNESCO World Heritage in Cyprus. From the Chalcolithic there is the settlement at Lempa, near Paphos, and from the city-kingdoms the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Palaepaphos, Kourion and Marion, beneath today’s Polis Chrysochous.

Romans and Byzantines

The mosaics of Nea Paphos, in Kato Paphos, span the Hellenistic to the Byzantine periods, according to UNESCO, and for me they’re the island’s best lesson in ancient history. The Byzantine era left another treasure, the churches of the Troodos. UNESCO counts them among the biggest clusters of Byzantine-era churches and monasteries, and singles out their murals. Ten have been on the list since 1985.

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Crusaders, Lusignans and Venice

In 1191 comes a chapter British visitors tend to love. According to the Limassol tourism board, Richard the Lionheart wed Berengaria of Navarre there, and she became Queen of England in the same town. The island then passed to the Lusignans, who ruled from 1192 to 1489, and after them to Venice.

The Venetians ringed Nicosia with new star-shaped walls, with eleven bastions and three gates, which the municipality calls a prototype of Renaissance military architecture. They weren’t enough. The Ottomans landed on 1 July 1570 and took the city on 9 September. The walls still stand, and a stroll along their moat is one of the best things to do in the capital. From that era comes Kolossi Castle, the knights’ tower near Limassol.

Ottomans and British

After the conquest of 1570, Cyprus was Ottoman until 1878, when British administration began, according to the Limassol tourism board. That period left mosques in former churches, bathhouses and caravanserais, many of them in the northern part of Nicosia. The British years left driving on the left, and two Sovereign Base Areas that are still British today.

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Independence and division

At midnight on 15-16 August 1960, the House of Representatives records, Cyprus ceased to be a British colony and the Republic was born. Its constitution, according to the UN, came out of the 1959 Zurich and London agreements between Greece and Turkey, and under the Treaty of Establishment the UK kept Akrotiri and Dhekelia. Intercommunal fighting broke out at the end of 1963, and in 1964 the UN peacekeeping force arrived, and it’s still there.

In July 1974 there was a coup against President Makarios and, days later, a Turkish military operation on the north coast. The government hasn’t controlled the north since, and a UN strip keeps the two parts apart. I go through it in detail, in facts and without adjectives, in the Cyprus problem. The EOKA struggle of 1955 to 1959 left traces in the mountains, such as Kykkos Monastery, which helped fund it, Afxentiou’s hideout at Palaichori and the house of Michalakis Eleftherios in Lagoudera, while in Nicosia the National Struggle Museum in Nicosia tells the story. Makarios III, the first president, is buried on Throni hill above Kykkos, as I explain in Makarios’s tomb at Throni. Makarios was born in Pano Panagia, in Paphos district.

Cyprus in the European Union

EU membership came in May 2004, and the euro in January 2008. Reunification is still pending, and the Spanish foreign ministry notes that the Crans-Montana summit closed in July 2017 with no agreement. How the state works today is in the political system of Cyprus. And if you’d like more, I’ve gathered some facts about Cyprus.

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