Athienou

Athienou Αθηένου Kiracıköy
Basic data
State :	Cyprus
District :	Larnaka
Geographic coordinates :	35 ° 4 '  N , 33 ° 32'  E Coordinates: 35 ° 4 '  N , 33 ° 32'  E
Residents :	5017 (2011)
LAU-1 code no .:	CY-03
Mayor :	Kyriakos Karekas
Website:	athienou.org.cy

Church Panayia Chriseleousa in Athienou

Athienou ( Greek Αθηένου , Turkish Kiracıköy ), in ancient Latin. Golgi of ancient Greek Γόλγοι (Golgoi), is a town in the district of Larnaca in Cyprus . It is one of the few places in the UN buffer zone between the southern and northern parts of the island. In 2011 it had 5017 inhabitants. The place is located in the eastern Mesaoria , an area that has been densely populated since ancient times. The ancient Golgoi was a city kingdom in the 1st millennium BC, its center, archaeologically recorded since the 19th century, was about 3 km east of Athienou.

geography

Location in Larnaka district; also see the occupied part of the community

Athienou is located in the interior of the island of Cyprus, north of the port city of Larnaka and southeast of the capital Nicosia , in the middle of the green line , the buffer zone between the Republic of Cyprus and the internationally unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Part of the municipal area lies north of the border in the occupied area.

history

Even if the Cypriot historian Leontios Machairas referred to the place with its current name in the Middle Ages, the localization of Athienou with Golgoi is widely accepted. Athanasios Sakellarios was the first Greek scholar to identify the ancient name Golgi with the archaeological site northeast of Athienos in 1851. This hill location is known as Γιόρκοι (Giorkoi) (note the similarity with Golgoi, "Γόλγοι"), and here Athanasios Sakellarios found some residential buildings as early as 1851, but not the traditional sanctuary of the "Golgian" Aphrodite (A. Ko-lo-ki -a). Finds not far away in 1918 supported the identification of Athienou or Γιόρκοι with Golgoi. Systematic excavations in Γιόρκοι were carried out between 1969 and 1972 by the Archaeological Mission of the University of Thessaloniki. Under these conditions, the history of Athienou goes back to Cypriot antiquity. The ancient kingdom of Golgoi, located in the area of ​​today's location, was already described by the Greek poet Theokritos in the third century BC. According to this, Golgoi was known for the cult of the Greek goddess Aphrodite , even before the cult arose in Paphos . About five kilometers southwest of Athinai there are also the Mall (o) ura sites , which have been excavated since 1990 as part of the Athienou Archaeological Project.

Golgoi lost more and more importance during the Roman period. Since the early modern period, however, the successor town of Athienou developed into an agricultural center of the region. Even today, after the occupation of part of the municipality, 10% of the national grain production comes from farmers from Athienou and 45% of the island's livestock is concentrated in the municipality.

Town twinning

Athienou has a partnership with the following municipality:

• Neapoli (municipality in the Aetolia-Acarnania prefecture )

Web links

Commons : Athienou  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Description of Golgoi in The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites

literature

• Antoine Hermary: Autour de Golgoi: les cités de la Mesaoria aux époques hellénistique et romaine , Cahiers du Center d'Études Chypriotes 34, 2004, 47-68 text
• V. Karageorghis: Chronique des Fouilles à Chypre en 1969 , BCH 94 (1970) 269-72I; 1971, 95, 403-6; 96 (1972) 1073-74; 97 (1973) 673.
• Olivier Masson: Kypriaka IX: Antiquités de Golgoi , BCH 95 (1971) 305-34MI text
• K. Nicolaou: Archaeological News from Cyprus, 1969 , AJA 74 (1970) 396-97I; 76 (1972) 314; 1973, 77, 56, 429-30
• Luigi Palma di Cesnola: Cyprus, its Ancient Cities, Tombs and Temples (1877)
• IK Peristianes: Γενικὴ Ἰστορια τῆς νήσου Κύπρον (1910)
• A. Sakellarios: Τὰ Κυπριακά I (1890)
• Toumazou, MK; Cardulias, PN; Counts, DB (Ed.): Crossroads and Boundaries: The Archeology of Past and Present in the Malloura Valley, Cyprus . Annual of ASOR 65. Boston, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 2012 PDF

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Mayors Message. Accessed February 15, 2019
2. ^ Statistical Service. Accessed February 15, 2019 (Download, English)
3. ↑ http://www.athienou.org.cy/en/the-municipality/tour-around-the-municipality/archeological-sites/ and in the Greek version Αρχαιολογικοί Χώροι ( memento from October 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ ^{a b} Historical Overview. Retrieved February 15, 2019; also https://www.theoi.com/Cult/AphroditeCult2.html
5. ↑ http://sites.davidson.edu/aap/ ( Memento from December 10, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Archive page, accessed on August 27, 2019
6. ↑ Antoine Hermary: Autour de Golgoi: les cités de la Mesaoria aux époques hellénistique et romaine, Cahiers du Center d'Études Chypriotes 34, 2004, 47-68, p. 47
7. ↑ International Relations. Accessed February 15, 2019