Paphos Catacombs

[Dominic]

We've been out and about photographing some more parts of Paphos Old Town for our newly launched website. We took some pictures of some of the catacombs, which proved popular when we previewed one on Facebook. So we went back to photograph some more, with surprising results...

Read the article and chat about it below...
 

paphos-catacombs_masthead.jpg (121.62 KiB) Viewed 2262 times

[Kili01]

Interesting photos in this blog, Dominic. Did you know that back in Roman days there were many graves dug in the area around and underneath most of the old town and surrounding area? Subterranean chamber tombs were built with several burial chambers leading off a passageway. Sometimes there are several tombs cut inside each chamber. Higher status persons and famliies were probably buried there. Many of these tombs are now covered by buildings or roads, so it is often only when a building is demolished or a road is being widened or realigned that these burial sites are found and excavated.
I know someone who may be able to help you Dominic, to get permission to take more photos and being bi lingual and knowing a lot of people in the Antiquities Branch might be able to advise you. But I don’t think that I should post the name on here without permission.

Dee

[Dominic]

Interesting photos in this blog, Dominic. Did you know that back in Roman days there were many graves dug in the area around and underneath most of the old town and surrounding area? Subterranean chamber tombs were built with several burial chambers leading off a passageway. Sometimes there are several tombs cut inside each chamber. Higher status persons and famliies were probably buried there. Many of these tombs are now covered by buildings or roads, so it is often only when a building is demolished or a road is being widened or realigned that these burial sites are found and excavated.
I know someone who may be able to help you Dominic, to get permission to take more photos and being bi lingual and knowing a lot of people in the Antiquities Branch might be able to advise you. But I don’t think that I should post the name on here without permission.

Dee

If you could PM me the details that would be very useful, thank you. I can then contact them privately and it will be up to them. If you need to ask them first I also understand.

Regarding the tombs, it reminds of of an old Terry Pratchett line about Ankh-Morpork, which also applies to London:

"Ankh-Morpork is built on black loam, broadly, but is mostly built on itself; pragmatic citizens simply built on top of the existing buildings when the sediment grew too high as the river flooded, rather than excavate them out. There are many unknown basements, including an entire "cave network" below Ankh-Morpork made up of old streets and abandoned sewers."