Religious and other misconceptions about the fossil bones of Cyprus,
from prehistoric times until today
Eleftherios Hadjisterkotis
Ministry of the Interior, Nicosia, 1453 Cyprus
Richard keshen
University of Cape Breton, Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada
ABSTRACT
In ancient Greece and Rome the discovery of fossilized remains of large mammals gave rise to legends of fantastic creatures, such as Griffins, Cyclops, Satyrs, mythical giant wild boar and most of the times giant heroes, which many times were displayed in sacred places. Although the ancient Greeks and Romans recorded their discoveries and imaginative interpretations in numerous writings that survive today, there are no such early writings on the fossils from Cyprus. Pygmy hippopotamus (Phanourios
minutus Cuvier 1824) fossilized bones were found in two aceramic Neolithic sites. A single metacarpal from Cape Andreas kastros in north-eastern Cyprus, and a fossilized long bone from Akanthou Arkosyko also in the northern part of Cyprus. Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibious L. 1758), and elephant (Elephas maxima/Loxodonta africana), teeth and bones were found in Bronze Age sacred and non sacred places in Cyprus, but why they were brought on Cyprus is debatable. The Cypriots for at least the last 500 years have been assuming that the fossil bones of the extinct pygmy hippopotami and pygmy elephants (Elephas Cypriotes) found on their island were those of people from shipwrecks, dragons, but mainly the relics of saints. In some cases these bones were powdered and used as medication. The powdering of fossil bones must have destroyed a considerable number of such fossils. These bones
would have been valuable to the palaeontologist working on morphological, dating and other problems. On other occasions the assigning of holiness to these bones might have contributed to their preservation. The reasons which might have led the Cypriots to believe that the bones were those of saints, and the way in which their modern culture has influenced these beliefs are discussed.
INTRODUCTION
The creation of Cyprus and the arrival of the large mammals
Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Its creation begun between 85 and 92 million years ago (time scale of Harland, et al. 1982), with the genesis of the Troodos Massif. Troodos is a fragment of uplifted oceanic crust of the vast Sea of Tethys(Gass 1980; Mukasa and Ludden 1987; McCallum and Robertson 1990; Moores et al. 1984). The ophiolite was generated during the opening of a small Neotethyan ocean basin, which lay along the northern margin of Gondwana (Robertson and Dixon 1984). However, spreading was short-lived and significant uplift of the Troodos Massif has mainly taken place in a pulsed nature in the Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene (Mcallum and Robertson 1990; Robertson 1990). By the Late Miocene, the Troodos Massif was a low-lying island, and the Kyrenia Range which had been deeply submerged, begun to rise. A severe compression and drastic uplift of the island occurred in the Pleistocene. The Troodos Massif, Kyrenia lineament and Mesaoria basin were uplifted together, and for the first time, Cyprus acted as a single structural unit (McCallum and Robertson 1990). That uplift raised Mt. Olympus to 1951 m.
About 15 million years ago, Tethys receded and the converging continental plates connected Europe, Asia and Africa. During the Miocene and Pliocene epochs (together called Neogene, about to 23 to 2 millions years ago) many species of large mammals migrated along this terrestrial corridor. These mammals included a great variety prehistoric elephants and mastodons Mammuthus meridionalis, Palaeoloxodon antiquus, Elephas trongotherii, Mamumut (Z.) borsoni, Mammuthus primigenius, , Anacus arvensis, Deinotherium giganteum, Mastodon pentelici; the huge herbivore Chalicotherium; giraffids Palaeotragus; giant Helladotherium; giant hyena Hyaena spelaea; woolly rhinoceros Coelodonta antiquitatis and forest rhinoceroses Rhinoceros and Didermocerus ; ostrich; saber-toothed tigers; giant tortoises, cave bears Ursus spelaeus; the giant giraffe Samotherium, Hipparion gracile, and giant cattle Bos primigenius. All the above extinct species were excavated in different parts of Greece (Guvier 1806; Marinou 1967; Scullard 1974;
Solunias 1981; Sondaar 1971; Symeonidis and Tataris 1982; Symeonidis and Theodorou 1990; Theodorou 1990; Tsoukala and Melentis 1994). However, they were all unknown to the Greeks of antiquity.
Seven to 5.5 million years ago, due to the tectonic movements the north-western coast of Africa came into contact with the southern tip of Spain and the early Mediterranean was blocked at both ends, causing it to nearly dry up, turning it into a salt desert (Hsü et al. 1973; Hsü et al. 1977; Hsü et al. 1978; Cita and Wright 1979; Hsü 1983; Attenborough 1987). During this period of desertification of the Mediterranean, the Mediterranean islands were probably connected to the mainland. About 5.3 million years ago, a series of deep faults running east and west broke the compacted junction between Morocco and Gibraltar, creating a new isthmus, through which the Atlantic flooded the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, seismic forces wrenched the land in the Pleistocene epoch, and rising waters isolated more new islands. Only 20,000 years ago Aegean islands like Samos and Lemnos were still peninsulas of Asia
Minor, allowing the free movement of animals from the mainland, exhibiting a high biodiversity. The great Ice Ages brought radical fluctuations of temperature and shorelines. Some mammals swam to or were isolated on islands, where evolved into new forms. (Mayor 2001; Attenborough 1987; Hadjisterkotis and Masala 1995; Hadjisterkotis et al. 2000).
Although many islands before their isolation by the sea were connected to the mainland, this was not the case with Cyprus. Even during the ice age Cyprus was separated from the mainland about 30 km. The unique way of genesis of Cyprus, which was uplifted from the ocean’s floor kept it isolated from the mainland. Even during the period when the Mediterranean dried, Cyprus was isolated by an inhospitable salt desert, or by a vast lake which was created by the rivers Nile, Orontes and Ceyhan. The result was that the huge beasts which roamed Greece and most of the Mediterranean islands never arrived on Cyprus. The only exception to this was the arrival of Elephants and hippos by swimming (Hadjisterkotis et al. 2000).
Imprisoned on their islands these animals were faced with conditions different form those their ancestors had experienced on the mainland. They began to evolve in their own particular way, just as animal on the Galapagos and other remote islands round the world have done. Large mammals such as elephants and hippos became smaller, and small ones, like rodents and reptiles, became large, even, in some cases ‘giant’ (Attenborough 1987, Davis 1987: 118-12). Most researchers believe that dwarfism was an evolutionary response both to the lack of predation and to the limited resources available (Sondaar 1977; Azzaroli 1982). The reason for their small size may well be connected with the absence or predators on the islands. Elephants in Africa and Asia rely for their immunity to attacks from lions and tigers on their huge size and tough skins. When they are no longer in such danger, their great massiveness is no longer required for their survival and, on an island where there are limited supplies of vegetation on which to feed, large physique is difficult to reach and to maintain (Attenborough 1987). In a similar way the first elephants and hippopotami which managed to arrived on Cyprus evolved into two pygmy endemic species, the pygmy hippopotamus (Phanourios minutus) (Forsyth Major 1902; Bate 1906;
Boekschoten and Sondaar 1972; Houtekamer and Sondaar 1979; Faure et al., 1983, Hadjisterkotis and Masala 1995; Hadjisterkotis et al 2000; Reese 1975, 1989, 1992, 1995, 1996; Simmons, 1988a, b, 1989, 1991a,b, c, 1992, 1996; Simmons and Reese, 1993; Simmons and Wigand, 1994) and the pygmy elephant (Elephas cypriotes) (Bate, 1903a, 1904a, b, c; Hadjisterkotis and Masala 1995; Hadjisterkotis et al 2000;
Reese 1995, 1996; Simmons 1988a, 1989, 1991a, b,c, 1992, 1996). On the island there are 32 Late Pleistocene fossil and subfossil sites, which consist almost exclusively of the above two mammals (Reese 1995). Both species went extinct about 10 000 years ago, as soon as the first humans appeared on Cyprus (Simmons and Wigand 1994; Hadjisterkotis et al 2000).
In the ancient Greece and Rome the discovery of fossils gave rise to legends of fantastic creatures, such as Griffins, Cyclops, Satyrs, mythical giant boar with great tusks the size of elephant tusks, and most of the times giant heroes (Mayor 1985, Mayor 2001). The remains of such heroes were highly respected by the early Greek and Romans and were exhibited in their temples, or were given an honored burial. Pausanius for example, describes many large bones, such as the large scapula of Pelops found in the sea near Eretria, a sanctuary of Asclepius in the coastal city of Asopus in Laconia where in a gymnasium very large human bones were venerated, and the large bones of Ajax exposed in a tomb by the sea on Salamis. A similar explanation might be suggested for the hippopotamus teeth found in the Heraion on Samos or the Sanctuary at Ai in Israel (Mayor 2000). P. J. Riis (1970) has stated that “Greeks who happened to find a tooth of huge dimensions, but otherwise resembling a human molar, would no doubt, treat it with great respect, assuming that it was a disjected member of a heroic burial, and such a casual find might easily give rise to some legend of a mythical founder of a town”. Large elephant and hippo teeth have
been recovered from sacred sites at ancient Mycenae (Peloponnesus), Knossos (Crete), Syria, Israel, Turkey and Cyprus, among other places.
Although the ancient Greeks and Romans recorded their discoveries and imaginative interpretations in numerous writings that survive today, there are no such writings on the fossils from Cyprus from antiquity (Mayor 2000). However, at least for the last 500 years there are many reports which provide a completely different interpretation of the fossilized remains of prehistoric animals from the early Greek
theories. These recent explanations considered fossilized bones mainly as the relics of Saints (Boekschoten and Sondaar 1972, Reese 1975b, 1995).
In this endeavor we review the records of hippopotamus and elephant fossils and non fossil bones on Cyprus since the arrival of humans on the island, about 10 000 years ago. We attempt to unveil whether the Cypriots of antiquity treated fossilized bones of large mammals in the same way as their contemporary Greeks and Romans. The legends created for the fossils of Cyprus during the last 500 years are reviewed, and we attempt to interpret why fossilized remains were considered as relics of saints. Finally, we attempt to examine the affect of culture and religion on shaping the modern legends on Cypriot prehistoric fossils, and the influence that these beliefs might have had on the preservation of the fossils.
Records of pygmy hippopotamus and pygmy elephant remains on Cyprus during the prehistoric times
The association of cultural remains with extinct fauna on a Mediterranean island was not known until the excavations at Akrotiri-Aetokremnos (or “Eagle’s Cliff”), a rock shelter in Cyprus (Simmons, 1988a, b, 1989, 1991a,b, c, 1992, 1996, Reese 1996, Hadjisterkotis et al 2000). During the excavations in the years 1987 to 1991 there were found 218,000 Cypriot pygmy hippopotamus bones from at least 502
individuals. Of 15,628 bones from 52 individuals found on the rockshelter floor 14.5% are burnt. There were 225 Cypriot pygmy elephant bones from at least three individuals, with several burnt. There were also two bones of a young endemic genet (Genetta cf. plesictoides). The few mouse remains of one individual, with some bones burnt, have been recently determined as a new species for Cyprus (Bonhomme et al 2004). There were 3,205 bird bone fragments (529 of them identifiable) from a minimum of 73 individual birds, which is the largest bird bone sample from any Early Holocene archaeological site in the East Mediterranean. There were also eggshells, snake remains from the Levant viper (Vipera lebetina), Cyprus grass snake (Natrix natrix cypriaca) and one Whip snake (Coluber jugularis). Other reptiles found were the remains of tortoises (Testudo sp. and Geochelone sp.). One fish vertebra of a Gray mullet was found and 73,000 fragments of edible marine shells from more than 21,000 individuals. There were many artefacts found in the area, dominated by small thumbnail scrapers, and about 75 shell and stone ornaments.
The discovery at Aetokremnos of pygmy mammal bones and human artefacts, was interpreted by the researchers as proof of a human role (at least partially) in the extinction of the endemic large mammals of Cyprus during the 11th millennium Cal BP, by hunting and eating them.
Before the discovery of Aetokremnos, pygmy hippopotamus bones had been recovered from only two archaeological sites. The first, a single metacarpal, was from the aceramic Neolithic site Cape Andreas kastros (Davis 1987: 124-125, 1989: 189) in north-eastern Cyprus. The second, a fossilized long bone probably belonging to a pygmy hippopotamus, was from another aceramic Neolithic site. Akanthou Arkosyko (Reese 1989: 29), also in the northern part of Cyprus. The directness of an association with Neolithic materials was questionable, and Davis (1987: 125, 1989: 189) suggested that single pieces of hippopotamus bone could have been collected by Neolithic ‘palaeontologists’. The explanation that these Neolithic ‘palaeontologists’ gave for these remains is unknown.
The discovery of remains of elephants and hippopotamus at sacred Antiguan places
The next discovery of large mammal’s bones was at the sacred area of the ancient city of Kition of Temple 1. It produced the tip of a Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibious L. 1758), and one elephant molar (Elephas maxima/Loxodonta africana), dated to between the Late Cypriot to Cypro-Geometric I, 1325-950 B.C. (Reese 1985a). A hippopotamus first mol1ar was also found in Kition in an area not connected with the sacred area. Excavations in 1980 in Area 8 South at Hala Sultan Tekké, produced a tip fragment of a young H. amphibious L. 1758) (Reese 1998). All hippopotami teeth from archaeological sites from Cyprus date to the 13 th century B.C. (Karageorghis 1985). According to Karageorghis (1985) it is certain that the hippopotamus incisor from Kition and the canine from Hala Sultan Tekké are debris from ivory-working. Various Bronze Age ivory objects in Cyprus have been shown to be made from hippopotamus incisors and canines (Caubet and Poplin 1987). However, Karageorghis noted that the unmodified hippopotamus and elephant molars are not so easily explained. It is possible that both are simply associated debris from imported ivory: a hippopotamus or elephant jaw was brought to Cyprus and the usable ivory (canines and incisors of hippopotami, incisors (tusks) of elephants) extracted and disposed of. On Cyprus the earliest ivory in any quantity is dated to the LCIIB-C (c. 1400-1200 B.C.) (Åström 1972:608), and ‘the source of the ivory found in Cyprus was probably Syrian (elephant)’. Pierides (1973) suggests that the ivory used in LCII- IIIA Cyprus (c. 1325-1190 B.C.) comes from Syria or Palestine. Y. Lynn Holmes notes that ‘it has been suggested that much of the ivory used in Cyprus comes from Syria’ based on Barnet (Barnet 1939).
However, Karageorghis also accepts the possibility that the suggestion of P.J. Riis (1970) noted earlier, might be another possibility for the presence of these bones, i.e. they were imported on the island and they end up in the sacred areas as relics of heroes.
Treating the above bones as giant heroes, to our opinion indeed is controversial. The giant beasts found on the mainland and other Greek islands were not present on Cyprus (Mayor 2001, see map 3.2 page 127). However, since there were no such relics on Cyprus, could it be possible that they were brought
intentionally for exhibit in a sacred place, something which is done even in our days with relics of saints?
It should be noted that not only the Greeks and Romans collected relics of giant beasts. In Egypt between a1320 and 1200 B.C. worshippers of Set, to who the hippopotamus was sacred, collected fossil bones of this mammal from Nile bone beds and treated them as sacred objects. G. Bruton and Sir Flinders Petrie found in 1923-4 at Qau on the right bank of the Nile, not far from Badari and about 50 km south of Asyut, that during the XIXth Dymnasty the mouths of two earlier tombs had been used as repositories for bone (in one nearly three tons), mainly of hippopotamus and objects of hippopotamus ivory. Brunton later found a similar collection nearby at Matmar, in a pit just outside a temple dedicated to Set (Barnet 1954). However, there is no evidence that Set was worshiped on Cyprus in order to assumed that some
worshippers brought hippopotamus bones on the island for veneration.
Nevertheless, it is well known that the ancient philosophers and historians collected, measured, displayed, and pondered the bones of extinct beasts, and they recorded their discoveries and imaginative interpretations in numerous writings that survive today. Even so, not all of them had the notion that fossil bones were bizarre creatures or heroes. For example, Plutarch clearly states that some of the immense bones of the Greek island Samos were display as the remains of Dionysus’s war elephants. According to Mayor (2001), this is an astonishing moment in the history of Paleontology, because the remains of mastodons (prehistoric elephants) do exist in the bone beds of Samos. Plutarch’s statement means that, some 1,700 years before Cuvier (1769-1832), fossil mastodons were correctly recognized as a species of elephant. Cuvier was a French naturalist who first proposed that mammoth bones belonged to extinct elephants. The legend of a great battle between the Amazons and Dionysus’s Indian elephants in the distant past was a rational attempt to explain how in the world elephants came to be buried on an Aegean island (Mayor 2001:55 figs. 2.1, 2.2).
Based on the above example from Plutarch, which indicates that Greeks were aware about hippopotamus and elephants, it is possible that Cypriots were even more aware about these species because of their proximity and trade relations (including ivory trade) with Syria and Egypt, where hippopotamus were present even until recently. If the Greek Cypriots were worshippers of giant heroes, it would be logical
that a number of remains of their pygmy elephants and hippopotamuses would find their way into sacred places, particularly the large molars and canines, something which was not done. Therefore, the importation of these bones for the ivory industry seems to be more realistic.
Records of fossiliferous deposits on Cyprus and modern beliefs
According to Swiny (1988) the first published record of fossilized bone deposit on a Mediterranean island appeared in Giovanni Francesca Abela’s Sesrittone di malta (1647). Abbela, Commander of the Knights of Malta and a 17 th Century antiquarian, described in detail the huge teeth and long bones that he believed were perhaps the remains of the Cyclops himself or of ancient Sicilians who belonged to the “Giant Epoch”. Perhaps this interpretation is an indication that the early Greek beliefs on the extinct large mammals of the Mediterranean lasted until the Middle Ages.
According to the above author (loc. Cit.), and Boekschoten and Sondaar (1972) the first published record for Cyprus postdates Abela’s report by 36 years and is accredited to Cornelius de Bruijn, a Dutchman who visited Cyprus in 1683.
However, there are two references on the fossils of Cyprus predating Abela’s Sesrittone di malta. The first reference on the fossil bones of Cyprus is by Leontios Machairas’s Chronikon Kyprou, (Leontios Machaeras 1360-1450, ) which, according to Vlasiou (1999) was written in Cypriot Greek in 1458. A second copy was
produced about 100 years after the death of the author in Pafos in 1555. An English translation was published by Dawkins in 1932. The relevant passage notes the following: “Also in the district of Casa Piphani there is a place lined with [slabs] and these saints are called [Άγιοι Φανέντες] Ayii Fanentes [the Saints Manifested ]. And their relics dried up, and came to be set hard like stone or something heavy as it were stone: and these are the Three Hundred who fled from Syria.” (Dawkins 1932: Paragraph. 36, Satha 1972) . Casa Piphani is the modern village of Kazaphani, just south of Kyrenia (Papageorgiou 1984).
The Kazaphani bones are also noted by the Belgian Pere Hippolyte Delehaye (born 1859), who says (Hippolyte Delehaye 1907) : “Enfin, le meme chroniquer signale a Kazaphani, un assuaire rempli de reliques des Hagioi Phanentes, faisant eux aussi partie des trois cents…” “Ayios Phanentis” is also the term used by Alexander Drummond in 1750 to describe the Ay. Yeoryios – Ay. Phanourios bones.
The second early description of fossil bones is that by Benedetto Bordone, an astronomer and geographer and native of Padua. He published a book in Venice in 1528 containing an account of all the islands of the world. About Cyprus he wrote the following: ” I say that in it is a mountain a thousand paces in height , with a circuit of two miles, composed entirely of the bones of various beasts, and even of men. It is called Cirenes [Kyrenia], and the dwellers there affirm as of perfect truth that whosoever is stricken by fever, and drinks a little of the powder scraped from these bones, has no sooner drunk than he is freed of his fever” (Cobham 1908). Until the early 70s, the only site known where bones were ground -up and a mixture consumed was Ayios Yeoryios – Ayios Phanourios, located less then 5 km to the west of Kyrenia. This is an indication that this habit of consuming a mixture of fossilized bones was taking place for almost four centuries. The Greek population of Kyrenia was forced to flee in the summer of 1974 after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, therefore this practice no longer exists.
The next record of fossil deposits on Cyprus was that of the Dutcman Cornelis de Bruijn (1698). His description of 1683 has been cited many times, and as it was noted earlier Swiny (1998) and Boekschoten and Sondaar (1972) reported it as the first record of fossiliferous deposits on Cyprus. Few decades ago was even developed (Ducloz 1968) as a proof of the stratigraphic position of these bones. As the book
has always been cited in its French translation from the original Dutch, Boekschoten and Sondaar (1972) provided the following English translation. Additions between parentheses were supplementary by the translators to improve the clarity of the text.
“In the night (of April 24, 1683) we arrived at the village of Cytheria [Kythrea], possibly called so after the Love goddess; also a Venus’s fountain is seen here. …. In the morning … we departed from there; expressly taking some villagers with us that knew their way in these surroundings in order to visit a certain place in the mountains where bones of man and beasts are seen in the rock, grown together and
petrified. This place was recommended to me as worthy of a visit by the Consult at Larnaca (Mr. Balthasar Sovan), and as I felt I was going to find something, I ordered hammers and chisels to be taken with us. I reached my goal, and had some bones hewn out of the rock. The most important was a bone, not dissimilar to a long bone of a human arm. This had grown firmly into the rock, that we had two hours’ work to remove it, with prudence, but not without breaking it into two, as the rock split in such
a way that it had to break also. But this apparent mishap turned to my advantage, as the configuration of the marrow inside the bones could be seen very accurately now. I wrapped it carefully in cotton to take it with me, and I have it still undamaged in my possession… At the same locality I also found a multitude of other pieces that were hidden below a little bit of earth, being some of these human and others animal bones, of many kinds, including many teeth of large dimensions.”
“On the surrounding rocks I saw ends of wax-candles, from which I directly opinioned that this place is held in reverence; as I was told too, that Greeks sometimes come to pray there, believing that possibly some bodies of their saints were buried there.”
In April 1750, Drummond, the British consul at Aleppo (Syria), after visiting the ruined abbey of Bellapais, describes the following in a letter to his brother: “From this delightful retirement I went to Ayios Phanentis, the rocks of which are washed by the sea, and there I found several human bones and teeth petrified. The country people, who, you know, abound in legends, say that a vast number of foreigners, called Allani, who came from a savage country to subdue and seize fruitful lands, were here shipwrecked and perished; their bones, as a punishment, and monument of their crimes, were turned into stone as we now see them; though some of them, being converted to the Christian faith, lived happily in the island and became saints. Of this number was Saint Mamas, of whom such honourable mention hath been made; yet some say he was a native of the island, while others affirm he was born upon the main. … I never saw a vegetation of stone-bones, stone-teeth, etc. yet I have such petrifactions in my possession; and heads, fingers, and toes have been found; whence I conclude that a great many people, in the early or distant ages of the world, have been wrecked upon this little point, and their bodies, when washed on shore, indurate by the natural means of petrifaction.” (Cobham 1908).
The following author to describe a fossil mammal from Cyprus was the Frenchman Georges Cuvier (1797). His material was originally described as a small hippopotamus of uncertain provenance, but later on Cuvier (1836) thought that the bone breccia that provided his fossils was derived from southern France, near Dax (Faure et al 1983).
The next person to report bones of the hippo was “General” Luigi Palma di Cesnola, American Consul at Larnaca, and antiquarian and tomb robber. From Idalion alone, an archaeological site in central Cyprus, he robbed 10,000 tombs. In his antiquarian description of Cyprus mentioned, when referring to Cape Pyla on the south coast, that a large cavern called ‘Spilio Macaria,’ contains a great quantity of bones, some of which were recognized as human. As he noted (Di Cesnola 1877), he succeeded in penetrating into the cave (ca in 1873-74), and found petrified bones on the floor and in the walls, forming a solid mass, from which he excavated a leg-bone and some teeth. His guide told him that they were the bones of ‘forty saints,’ and that a few years ago it had been the custom of the peasants of neighboring villages to make a pilgrimage to this cave on the 9th of March, accompanied by their priest. The Archbishop of Cyprus, who happened to be in the nearby village of Ormidia at the time of one of these pilgrimages, had ordered them to be discontinued. Although this must have happened in 1860-70, Boekschoten and Sondaar in 1969 (1972) learned in Ormidia that this was not yet forgotten.
In a letter written in 1875 by di Cesnola to a friend, John T. Johnson, he says that they were not the mass graves of humans, but the remains of “antediluvian beasts.”
This cave is today named Ayii Saranda (Forty Saints). It is located on a rocky sea front, and its entrance is shattered by the waves. Above the cave facing the sea there is a large cement cross with the sign “Αγιοι Σαράντα = “the forty saints”. The cross is the same type used to mark graves in Greek cemeteries. Local young people from Xylophagou village which is located between the cave and the village Ormidhia,
in 1975 told me that it is thought that these bones belong to the Forty Saints. However, to my surprise they also told me the story of the Archbishop who ordered the priest from Ormidhia to discontinue the pilgrimages to this cave. According to their story, during the visit of the Archbishop to the village of Xylophagou he noticed that the priest of the nearby village of Ormidia did not come to greet him. The locals told him that he went to the cave of the Ayii Saranta for a ceremony. The Archbishop told the people to go and bring him, and told him not to do that again. However, they had the feeling that this was a rather recent event.
Surprisingly, about two decades ago, J.C. Goodwin (1984) wrote of these bones that “it appears that the bones may indeed be human.”
I visited the cave about five years ago, and I noticed that a large number of bones were embedded in the rocky floor, what’s left from the repeated excavations and looting of the cave by both foreigners and Cypriots. The bones left were partly showing in the rock. Based on their small sizes and the fact that most of the bones are only partly showing, it is not surprising that they were mistaken for human bones.
The next citation of fossil bones is by Alfred Bergeat (1892) who mentions in a footnote that the young calcareous slope-breccia contains large mass of bones to the west of the Ay. Chryssostomos monastery, 2 m thick and 6 m wide. However, the bones were not identified as animal, human etc.
The first major phase in the study of the fossils of Cyprus began with the arrival of Miss Dorothea M.A. Bate on the island in the spring of 1901. She started working at the localities mentioned by De Bruijn, Cesnola and Bergeat and was able in a short time to sent some material to the Natural History Museum of London (NHML), where it was published by C. I. Forsyth Major (1902). This paleontologist had studied the pygmy hippopotami of Madagascar in 1895, and found that the bones sent from Cyprus were like a dwarf hippopotamus, of uncertain derivation, described by Cuvier and named Hippopotamus minutus by H.M.D. de Blainville in 1825. Forsyth Major recognized the “human radius-like bone” unearthed by De Bruijn as a hippo femur. Derek A. Hooijer (1946) also thinks it is a hippo bone, but a humerus rather than a femur. David Reese, a zooarchaeologist from Yale University, specializing in Mediterranean zooarchaeology, also believes it is a humerus (Personal communication).
Miss Bate left Cyprus in November 1902, after she had cumulated a huge collection that belonged partly to herself, and partly to the Royal Society which granted her excavations. The latter material was donated to the British Museum; the former was partly purchased by that institution, and a lot was probably obtained by Dr F. Krantz in Bonn. (Boekschoten and Sondaar 1972).
Bate described her observations and collections in a series of papers from 1903-06, which remains precious until today. She also kept detailed field notes which now are in the NHML. The following quote is from her field notes from her diary on her activities on 6th of May 1902.
“In the afternoon my men took me to another cave above Pascali’s Chiftlik. They called it St. Elias and evidently consider it a sacred spot. A sort of entrance has been built round the mouth of the cave and in this there is an altar where they burn a native lamp-a woman came to light it while I was there. My men laughed at the idea of the hippo’s being saint bones and none of them minded my digging out some specimens. This is a regular cave though small–very narrow, runs in a little way but soon gets very low. Got a few teeth and pieces of jaw bones.”
After the detailed papers by Bate, only incidental mention of fossils from the island has occurred. In 1919, hippo bones were presented by C. Gunther to the NHML; elephant molars were purchased by that institution from G. B. Palma in 1925; and in 1930 it received hippo remains from R. Gunnis. The latter published a book (Gunnis 1936) recording several hippo localities not known to Bate, namely one west of Acanthou, one near Ayia Irini and one near Ay. Yeorgios. His description of the latter locality runs as follows: “Near the sea the tiny rock-cut Chapel of St. Phanourios; beneath this chapel the rocks are full of fossil bones, called by the villagers the bones of St. Phanourios, but in reality remains of pygmy hippopotamus. Villagers dig out from the rock the fossil bones and powdering them, mix them with a
drink of water; a sovereign cure for nearly every known disease. St. Phanourios was a youth who lived in Asia Minor and heard the call of Christ, and came across in a small open boat with only his faithful horse as his companion, and landing, tried to ride up the steep cliff, but his horse slipped and fell and he and his steed were killed, in token of which the horse’s footprints are shown to this day.”
Boekschoten and Sondaar (1972) visiting the site in 1969, observed that these customs were still held. This also must be the site noted by Bordone in 1528. They also heard the villagers of Ay. Irini interpret the nearby bone-breccia of “Dragontovounari” (Hill of the Dragons) as the burial place of dragons, drowned during a terrible flood, which is proven by the shells of oysters and scallops in the surrounding rock. Perhaps this is the only interpretation which is somewhat similar to some of the early Greek interpretations of fossil bones. “Dragon bones” is also the conventional name which the Siberians’ use for the fossils, which parallels the way the Chinese referred to all fossils of extinct animals found in their countries, even though they recognized that some of the remains belonged to deer and horses (Mayor 2000).
However, the current local story presents the bones as belonging to a horse, not to a human. Androula Soupashi (1993) notes that «according to the tradition when the Saint was chased by the Saracens he arrived by swimming on his horse from Asia Minor, and arrived at the rock. There his horse died and its fossilized bones are seen in the rocks. In this cave the Saint hid and found safety from his enemies. The cave was dedicated to the Saint and became a holy place”.
The author of the book states that this was only a local tradition, and publishes a photograph of the “fossilized bones from the saints’ cave”. To the skilled eye of a zoologist this picture shows clearly the mandible of a Cypriot hippo, Phanourios minor (named in 1972 after the saint). However, the layman would not be able to distinguish it from a mandible of a horse or any other animal.
A similar story was noted by G. K. (1994). “At a rocky beach, in a cave at the northern side of the village there is the icon of the saint. The rock around it is full of hippopotamus fossils. The tradition notes that the bones (fossils) belong to the horse of St. Phanourios. Saint Phanourios came to Cyprus from Asia Minor , as soon as he was informed about the spread of Christianity on the island. He got on a boat with his horse. When he arrived at this rocky place his horse attempted to jump over the rocks, without succeeding. The saint was killed, while the bones of the horse were embedded in the rocks.” People from this area told me that they used to go to the church to give respect to the icon of St. Phanourios, but, contrary to Boekshoten and Sondaars’ statement, they were not giving respect to the fossilized bones. However, this does not imply that they were not doing so in the past. The view of the bones being horse and not the saint is also given by Paraskevopoulou (1978, 1982).
In an attempt to understand why some Cypriots thought that these fossils were those of saints, we examined the bibliography on the lives and the meaning of the names of the saints noted above.
Ayii Fanentes
It seems that the only reference to the Ayii Fanentes is by Machairas noted earlier. The late Archbishop Makarios the 3rd, in a short footnote in his book, (Archbishop of Cyprus Makarios the third 1968) notes that: “Anonymous are also those mentioned as Ayii Fanentes in the biography of St. Konstantinos from Judaia: “In a local place difficult to approach on a cliff there lay the holy relics of saints (Fenontes they were named).” These saints seem to be those honored near the city of Kyrenia, Ayii Fanentes, who are noted by Machairas without stating their names or their number.”
Papageorgiou (1984) also notes that the only reference to Ayii Fanentes are those of Machairas, and the biography of St. Constantine from Judaia. He notes that : “It is true that in some cases in Cyprus, fossil bones of animals were considered as belonging to saints; caves in which they were found were converted to places of worship (for example the cave of the Prophet Elias at Pentadactylos, not far from Kazaphani, which probably Machairas had in mind…. It does not appear, presumably, that such saints, Ayii Fanentes (or Fanerothentes or Fenontes) exist, but was a cave with fossilized bones from prehistoric animals. This explains why no specific name was saved from these saints nor other element or any information about them.”
To verify whether the official church of Cyprus considers Ayii Fanentes as real saints, I searched through the Book of Celebrations eortoloyion which includes the names of the saints who are celebrated by the church of Cyprus, and the dates on which they are celebrated, but no such saint were included (Small eulogy book or Ayiasmatarion 1984).
Ayios Phanourios
Ayios Phanourios is a martyr unknown in the ancient ayiological references, therefore, it is unknown when and where he lived or where and how he became martyred. Saint Phanourios is known from an icon found in an excavation of an ancient church outside the walls of Rhodes in Greece. On this icon the Metropolitan Nilos (1355-1369) read the name “Ayios Phanourios”. The man presented on the icon was in a military uniform holding a cross in his right hand (Martinos 1967). Therefore, there is no evidence that Ayios Phanourios has anything to do with Cyprus.
The name Ayios Phanourios was given recently to the Ayios Yeoryios area, which was known as Ayii Fanentes. The names Ayios Phanourios, Ayii Phanendes, Hagioi Phanentes, Ayios Phanents, Ayia Phanenda, all mean “Discovered Saints” , “the one who has appeared,” or “Saints Manifested”. The fossil bones, which to the layman look human, were associated with some unknown discovered or
manifested saint, who nobody knows anything about.
Because of his name, Ayios Phanourios in Cyprus is considered as the saint who usually helps people to discover or find things that they have misplaced or lost. In some parts of Cyprus people believe that unmarried women can find a husband, if they bake a cake in the name of the saint, and offer it for eating to several people.
Ayii Saranta (the Forty Saints)
The “Forty Saints” were soldiers under one commander during the kingship of Likinios in 330 A.D. Because of their Christian faith they were arrested and tortured and eventually were thrown into the nearby frozen Sevastia lake in of Pontos (Asia Minor), where they spent the night. In the morning they were killed by having their legs crushed. Their names were recorded and are known (Moustaki 1975).
They have nothing to do with Cyprus, and attributing the fossils at Xylophagou to these Saints is a false assumption, which was based on the presence of a large number of bones.
St. Elias (Prophet Elijah)
The period of Israelite history when Elias appeared was during King Ahab’s apostasy, when, through the influence and example of his wife Jezebel he formally introduced the worship of other gods into Israel (1 Kings xvi 31). “And Elijah said unto Ahab, As Jehovah, God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall be no dew nor rain these years, but according to my word”. After the utterance of a word by which the genial influences of heaven were to be laid under arrest for a series of years, it became necessary that a hiding place should be provided for Elijah, that he might escape from the violence of those in high places, and from the importunities of others, who might try to prevail upon his pity. Such a hiding place was found for him to the east — beyond the limits of the kingdom of Israel–beside the brook Cherith, that flowed into the Jordan. (1 Kings xvii 4; 1 Kings xvi 31) (Smith’s Bible Dictionary Undated).
The escape of the Prophet Elias on the top of the mountain led the Cypriots to associate the top of mountains or even the tops of hills with this prophet. As a result churches dedicated to this prophet are usually located on top of hills and mountains. This might have been the reason for dedicating the cave with the fossils at Pano Dhikomo – Prophitis Elias to St. Elias. Most probably the cave was dedicated to the
prophet, and the bones just happened to be there.
Strange monuments of worship
The phenomenon of applying sanctity to fossilized bones, or adoring strange objects was not restricted only on Cyprus. According to the Cypriot historian and journalist Andros Pavlides (2004), in Cyprus there are many monuments which are offered for devotion, although these places have nothing to do with the saints which are honored in them. Like the so called cell of St. Katherine in the ancient city of
Salamis, (where she was jailed by her father for refusing to marry (Mogabgab 1941:149) which is a tomb of the 6 th century B.C. This saint never arrived on Cyprus. Not even Ayia Mavri ever came to Cyprus, although at the village Kilani they show the place where she was taken to haven. Not even St Hermogenis ever came to Cyprus, however an ancient tomb at the necropolis of Kourion is considered as his. The same can be said for the grave of St. Riginos in Fasoula village and many other monuments.
Similarly to the Greeks of antiquity, and perhaps the Cypriots, who had enshrined molars of hippos, many cultures shelter special objects with a mythic aura. More recently, the bones and teeth of mammoth have been venerated in Western Europe as remains of St. Christopher, who was represented in medieval legends as a giant. The Riesentor of Great Gate of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna, derived its
name from the thigh bone of a mammoth which hung inside the cathedral near that gate in the mid 1400’s and was widely believed to be a relic of St. Christopher (Oakley, 1975). Sri Lanka has the Temple of Budha’s Tooth, and the Smithsonian display Judy Garlad’s red shoes from The Wizzard of Oz. As it was noted by Mayor (2000) “Think of the mystique surrounding George Washington’s false teeth, John Dillinger’s penis, Einstein’s brain, a fragment of John F. Kennedy’s skull. When it comes to relics, the lines between myth and history and piety and spectacle, are thin”. The difference from the antiquity is that the mythohistorical relics displayed by temple curators were not random objects stripped of historical meaning, but physical links to a culture’s shared legendary past.
The effect of culture and religion on shaping modern legends about prehistoric
fossils
Although many scholars attempted to understand and to explain the custom of the antique Greeks and Romans to created legends of fantastic creatures and giant heroes from the remnants of prehistoric animals, nobody so far examined why almost always in Cyprus the remnants of their fossilized hippos and elephants were associated with saints. Nobody has examined how the Modern Greek culture and
religion contributed to this phenomenon. It is noticeable that contrary to the Greeks of the antiquity who were attempting to examine a glorious legendary past, Modern Greek Cypriots are associating their fossilized findings with the present. By the time that people in Cyprus begun honoring fossil bones as saints, their lives were shaped by the Christian religions and their Byzantine cultural heritage. A vital religious practice in the Greek Byzantine culture is monasticism, and the respect of relics of saints. It
seems that this is where the idea of the sacred bones associated with saints begins.
The use of caves as dwellings and burial places of Monks
It is not unusual in Cyprus, or in the rest of the Orthodox or even the Catholic world, to come across monks (some of which were considered as saints) who spent their lives living in caves devoted to fasting and prayer. These monks often would dig their own graves in their cave, and buried there. A famous example is the holy grottoes of Cappadocia, which once housed the largest community of monks in Asia
Minor. Some 300 beautifully frescoed churches and dwelling spaces for 30,000 monks were carved from the soft volcanic pinnacles between the 4th and 14th centuries A.D. (Severy 1983).
Another example is the peninsula of mount Athos, or Holy Mountain in Greece, an area of 360 km2 with its 20 monasteries, and a large number of hysihastiria, i.e. isolated places located on high cliffs, in caves or small huts. The huts are separated from each other by rocks or canyons, and are connected with each other through narrow paths, ladders and chains. Monasticism here is dating as far back as the 9th century A.D. (KADA 1991, Provatakis undated).
In Palestine, not far from the city of Jericho in a deep canyon is one of the oldest monasteries in the region, that of Ayios Yeoryios tou Hozeva (St. George of Hozeva). The large number of caves in the area were used by monks since the early days of Christianity, and also today. These caves were used not only as dwellings but also as places to bury the dead. According to Zakou (1970), one hundred meters from the monastery a large number of graves were found in a natural cave. Above the roof of a small church of this monastery is the cave in which, according to the Old Testament, St. Elias the prophet hid and was fed by ravens (Zakou 1970).
Another famous example from Cyprus is St. Neophytos and his monastery. He was born in the village of Kato Drys in 1134. At Melisovounos, a few kilometers from the city of Paphos, he dug his cell on a steep cliff. Nearby his cell he established a monastery. In one of the cells that he dug he was also buried (Kappai 1993).
The most detailed work on the saints of Cyprus who spent their lives in caves was compiled by Vlasiou (1999), who recorded 80 such saints from all over Cyprus, some of which were buried in their caves.
The association of caves with burial places of people who dedicated themselves to monasticism, most possibly directed the Cypriot layman to associate human-like bones found in caves with the bones of some unknown holy person. In cases where it was understood, or they were informed that these bones were not human, they were associated with beasts and dragons, or horses, or they were completely ignored.
To our opinion this tradition was used to explain how in the world some strange bones
appeared in isolated caves.
The effect of the labeling of holiness on the Cypriot fossils
The powdering of hippo bones and using them to cure diseases in the Kyrenia area was a radical practice, and must have caused the destruction of a considerable number of bones. These bones today could have been of value to the scientist working on fossil problems.
In areas without the tradition of powdering the fossils, the assigning of holiness to the fossils might have caused their preservation. Large deposits of hippo bones near Kissonerga village at Kissonerga – Kleiotoudes/Ayios Phanentos, were one of the main sources of bones for scientific study of these animals, and were also thought to be saints (Boekschoten and Sondaar 1972). Since the local people could not trace which saints were buried there they named them Ay. Fanentes or Ay. Phanentos. It seems, though, that over time people ignored the supposed presence of these saints. A recent survey of local residents indicated that they were not aware of the presence of saints but they were well-informed that the area once contained bones of hippos. These bones were excavated by Boekschoten and Sondaar in1970 and
most of them were carried in the Netherlands, vanishing them from Cyprus. Later in 1974, the area was bulldozed to create terraces for banana plantations, completely eliminating any signs of the fossil bed. Other fossil sites would probably have been similarly treated if they were not protected as holy places by the local residents, particularly when we keep in mind the intensive agriculture and building development in Cyprus during the last 30 years. The building of small churches near or at the entrance to the caves, as was the case with St. Phanourios and St. Elias, assured the protected status of the area eliminating any disturbance of the bones. However, since it became known that on the island there are fossil sites with elephants and hippopotami, researchers, universities, and certain amateur fossil collectors collect them in large quantities. It is fine for research institutes and museums to excavate and
to do research on fossil sites. However, as I was told from Dr Theodorou, a paleontologist from the University of Athens, who was recently doing research at a newly discovered site near Ayia Napa, unscientific excavations by fossil collectors caused the loss of valuable fossils, the distraction of valuable evidence about the ecology of the site, the causes of the mass death of these animals, and perhaps the
evidence for their extinction.
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