Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "TAMASSOS Ancient city CYPRUS".
In the copper mining area SW of Nicosia. The ruins of a large town
lying on the left bank of the river Pediaios extend on the top and over the N
slopes of a hill overlooking the rich Pediaios valley below. The site is now partly
occupied by the village of Politiko. The town consisted of two parts, the acropolis
and the lower town. The acropolis is believed to lie on top of the hill to the
S of the town, where now stands the village elementary school. Remains of the
city wall can still be traced for part of its course. The necropolis extends N
and W.
Tamassos, one of the ancient kingdoms of Cyprus was probably the Homeric
Temese. Nothing is known of its origin but it certainly succeeded a Late Bronze
Age settlement in the area, the best known one being on the other side of the
river on a height due N of Pera village. A Late Bronze Age necropolis, however,
exists at Lambertis, a small hill due SE of the ancient town and E of the Monastery
of Haghios Herakleidios. Owing mainly to the existence of copper mines, the area
of Tamassos was inhabited even earlier. The city naturally owed its prosperity
to these mines, as has been stressed by ancient writers.
Very little is known of the history. On the prism of Esarhaddon (673-672
B.C.) is mentioned the name Atmesu, king of Tamesu (Admetos, king of Tamassos),
were the identification certain. The earliest known historical event goes back
to the middle of the 4th c. B.C., when Pasikypros, king of Tamassos, sold his
kingdom for 50 talents to Pumiathon, king of Kition, and retired to Amathous,
where he spent his old age. Later on we hear again of Tamassos when this city
was taken away from Pumiathon by Alexander the Great and presented to Pnytagoras,
king of Salamis. Thereafter it is frequently mentioned (Strab. 14.684; Ptol. 5.14.6;
Plin. HN 7.195; Steph. Byz.). Tamassos is one of the Cypriot cities mentioned
in the list of the theodorokoi from Delphi (early 2d c. B.C.). The city flourished
mainly from archaic to Graeco-Roman times; in Early Christian times it became
the seat of a bishop.
The worship of Apollo and of the Mother of the Gods at Tamassos is
attested by epigraphic or archaeological evidence. The Sanctuary of Apollo may
be located to the NE of the town by the left bank of the river Pediaios. It was
near here in 1836 in the bed of the river that a bronze statue of Apollo was found.
Its head only has been preserved. Known as the Chatsworth head, it is now in the
British Museum. The Sanctuary of the Mother of Gods may be located just inside
the N city wall. From inscriptions or from literary sources we learn of the worship
of Aphrodite, of Dionysos, of Asklepios, and of Artemis, but nothing is known
of their sites.
There are no coins attributed to Tamassos and nothing is known of
the existence of a gymnasium or of a theater though a town of this importance
should have had both.
The town site is practically unexcavated but two imposing royal built
tombs, one with two chambers, dating from the archaic period, were excavated in
1889. These tombs had been looted long before their excavation but both are well
preserved.
The first tomb has a stepped dromos, the sides of which are revetted
with well-dressed stones. The facade is beautifully molded. On either side of
the stomion the walls are decorated with a pilaster surmounted by Proto-Ionic
capitals of extremely fine workmanship. The chamber is rectangular; its side walls
are built of large ashlar blocks; the roof is saddle-shaped and made of two huge
slabs resting on the side walls and leaning against each other. Along the rear
wall there is an open sarcophagus.
The second tomb, near the first, is very much the same construction
but it has a more elaborate decoration imitating wood carvings. A stepped dromos
leads down to the entrance. The two chambers have molded saddle-shaped roofs imitating
wooden logs, which are supported on a molded beam running lengthwise at the top
of the roof. Along the rear wall of the back chamber there is a sarcophagus. The
first chamber is provided with two square niches in the shape of false doors.
On the upper part of these doors a door-lock is sculptured in stone: four vertical
projections through which a bar has been pushed horizontally.
K. Nicolaou, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
(Tamassos) or Tamasus (Tamasos), probably the same as the Homeric Temese. A town in the middle of Cyprus, northwest of Olympus, and twenty-nine miles southeast of Soloe.
Tamassus (Tamassos, Ptol. v. 14. § 6; called also Tamaseus by Pliny, v. 31. s. 35, Tamasos by Constantine Porphyr. de Them. i. p. 39, and Tamesa by Statius, Achill. i. 413; cf. coins in Eckhel, i. 3. p. 88), a town in the interior of the island of Cyprus, 29 miles SW. of Soloe, and on the road from that place to Tremithus. It lay in a fruitful neighbourhood (Ovid, M. x. 644), and in the vicinity of some extensive copper mines, which yielded a kind of rust used in medicine (Strab. xiv. p. 864). It is very probably the Temese of Homer (Od. i. 184; Nitzch, ad loc; cf. Mannert, vi. 1. p. 452), in which case it would appear to have been the principal market for the copper trade of the island in those early times. Hence some derive its name from the Phoenician word themaes, signifying smelting.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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