Page -3-Scan 3 of 10
Continued from scan 2
… the epicenter. He has located it offshore to the southwest in an area still active today, about twenty miles south of Petra tou Romiou (Aphrodite's Rock). Dr. Bullard disagrees with this appraisal, saying that such a location would have meant an estimate of twelve on the Modified Mercalli Scale. He believes that the epicenter was possibly some miles further to the south or southwest but he did not wish to give precise coordinates. Nonetheless one conclusion seems clear. An earthquake which struck Kourion with such terrific force from the southwest about 370 A.D. would also have caused terrible destruction on Paphos and everywhere else near the coast between the two cities. It is thus worth considering whether or not this quake and not some earlier one destroyed Paphos, and as we shall see there is much evidence that traditional opinion for the destruction of this city may need to be revised. It is usually believed that Paphos was destroyed between 332 and 345 A.D. But what is the evidence for it? So far nothing conclusive has emerged from archaeological investigations in the Paphos region and Drs. Ino and Kyriakos Nicolaou, long-time experts in this area, agree that the date of the final destruction is still not really known. The evidence for an earthquake at Paphos in 342 A.D. is given by Ambraseys: ".... in 342 A.D., Paphos was totally ruined by another earthquake. The Roman emperor, relieving the survivors of taxation for four years, rebuilt Paphos and renamed it as Constantia. The part of the city around the fort was shaken down while the port area with all its buildings slumped and sunk (sic) into the sea. It is said that this earthquake changed the course of many small rivers in the district of Paphos and by swallowing up many others caused an excessive drought. This account refers to extensive land-slides or to fault movements perhaps of the same origin as those caused by the earthquakes of 1189 and 1953. It seems that Paphos was so severely damaged by the 342 earthquake, and probably by previous earthquakes, that in spite of the Emperor's attempts it was not, for some time, totally rebuilt." A more popular writer, Hazel Thurston, offers a similar account:
65 figures hard to readstruck struck outadded written in above” jug ditto, and what it repeatsword reading not certain