This model shows the village of Ayios Sozomenos (Turkish: Arpalık; Greek: Αγιος Σωζόμενος), is a former (primarily) Turkish village located in the Nicosia District of Cyprus. The village was named after an early Cypriot saint, whose Byzantine hermitage is carved into the cliffs north of the village.
Following Cypriot independence in 1960 CE, the area was highly contested between Greek and Turkish communities, who each were displaced by the conflict. Ayios Sozomenos was the site of heavy fighting in 1974, after which most of the village’s remaining Turkish Cypriots were resettled in the north.
Today, this abandoned village is being mapped, documented, and dendrochronologically (tree-ring) dated by a team including scholars from the University of Georgia, Cornell University, and the Cyprus Institute to learn more about its settlement history and Ottoman-era (1671-1878 CE) forest use and environmental history in Cyprus.
📷: Marina Faka, The Cyprus Institute
Comments