Amathus - in Late Antiquity and The Middle Ages

In Late Antiquity and The Middle Ages

Later, in the fourth century AD Amasus became the see of a Christian bishop and continued to flourish until the Byzantine period. In the late sixth century, Ayios Ioannis Eleimonas (Saint John the Charitable), protector of the Knights of St. John, was born in Amathus.

Amathus still flourished and produced a distinguished patriarch of Alexandria, St. John the Merciful, as late as 606-616, and a ruined Byzantine church marks the site; but it declined and was already almost deserted when Richard Plantagenet won Cyprus by a victory there over Isaac Comnenus in 1191. The tombs were plundered and the stones from the beautiful edifices were brought to Limassol to be used for new constructions. Much later, in 1869, a great number of blocks of stone from Amathus were used for the construction of the Suez Canal.

Read more about this topic:  Amathus

Famous quotes containing the words late, antiquity, middle and/or ages:

    “I would remind my countrymen that they are to be men first, and Americans only at a late and convenient hour.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “Nothing but great antiquity can make graveyards interesting to me. I have no friends there.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “In middle life, the human back is spoiling for a technical knockout and will use the flimsiest excuse, even a sneeze, to fall apart.”
    —E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)

    “In all her products, Nature only develops her simplest germs. One would say that it was no great stretch of invention to create birds. The hawk which now takes his flight over the top of the wood was at first, perchance, only a leaf which fluttered in its aisles. From rustling leaves she came in the course of ages to the loftier flight and clear carol of the bird.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)