Kourion Complex (Apollo) post 1945 (1 of 2)

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It was this earthquake, very likely, which destroyed the sanctuary as a whole. By this time with the rising tide of Christianity which had become the faith of the Emperor Constantine himself, it was doubtless not possible to find the necessary funds to rebuild Apollo's ancient precinct. Possibly the trustees of the sanctuary sold out to a contractor, or to a number of private people who rebuilt certain parts of the site for their own occupation or use. For example, the occupant of room 4 of the Southeast Building kept an animal there. We can still see the manger. The occupant of the Baths turned the building into a house. He put a window in the west wall of room 9; he took out the hot water tanks which once occupied the two bays; he blocked up the doorway between this room and room 8, between rooms 7 and 8, and between the doorway which once led from room 4 to the back yard. It was probably he, too, who built the wall to the west and south of the building, very likely to serve as a fence to keep in his animals.

For this purpose he helped himself to stone blocks from the neighbouring ruins, including column drums which once stood in the porticoes of the Southeast Building. Before many years had elapsed, however, another devastating earthquake brought down his house. This may have been the recorded one of 342. After this second disaster in the 4th century it is not likely that more than a handful of people remained on the site. The ruins became a source of cheap building material until our own time when finally little or nothing remained visible above ground.