Ancient CyprusAncient Cyprus

Glossary Religion and cult

Extra-urban sanctuary

Also called: rural sanctuary

A sanctuary set in the countryside away from the main town, often on a boundary or route within a kingdom's territory.

Many of the best-known Cypriot sanctuaries lie outside the cities, among them Ayia Irini, the sanctuary of Apollo Hylates west of Kourion, Athienou-Malloura and Meniko. Scholars have argued that the Iron Age kingdoms used such sanctuaries to mark and hold their territory, and the style of the votives can show which city's workshops supplied them. Other rural shrines served farming communities with no obvious link to a royal centre. See architecture and horse-and-rider figurines.

Related terms

  • Open-air sanctuary

    A sanctuary laid out as an open walled court with an altar and offerings, the usual form of Cypriot cult place in the Iron Age.

  • Apollo Hylates

    'Apollo of the Woodland', the god of a major rural sanctuary west of Kourion, worshipped from the Iron Age into Roman times.

  • City-kingdom

    One of the small independent kingdoms, each ruled from a city, into which Iron Age Cyprus was divided until about 310 BCE.

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