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IDALION (Ancient city) CYPRUS
Idalia, Idalium (Idalion: Eth. Idaleus, Steph. B.; Plin. v. 31), a
town in Cyprus, adjoining to which was a forest sacred to Aphrodite; the poets
who connect this place with her worship, give no indications of the precise locality.
(Theocr. Id. xv. 100; Virg. Aen. i. 681, 692, x. 51; Catull. Pel. et Thet. 96;
Propert. ii. 13; Lucan viii.17.) Engel (Kypros, vol. i. p. 153) identifies it
with Dalin, described by Mariti (Viaggi, vol. i. p. 204), situated to the south
of Leucosia, at the foot of Mount Olympus.
(Idalion). A town in Cyprus, sacred to Aphrodite, who hence bore the surname Idalia.
Inland by the river Yialias 22 km NW of Kition. The ruins of the ancient
city extend to the S of the modern village of Dali. The city consisted of three
parts: two acropoleis and the lower town. The acropoleis occupied two hills, Moutti
tou Gavrili to the E and Ambelleri to the W. These acropoleis bounded the city
to the S and the lower town extended on their N slopes and on the flat land right
up to the S outskirts of the modern village, which lies near the river. The city
wall can still be traced along the N ridge of the E acropolis and past the Church
of Haghios Georgios, where it disappears in the plain. It can also be traced along
the ridge of the W acropolis, where it was partly excavated, and then disappears
in the plain below. The necropolis extends E and W. Tombs of the Late Bronze Age
and of Geometric times lie in the E necropolis; those of the archaic, Classical,
Hellenistic, and Graeco-Roman, in the W one.
Idalion, one of the ancient kingdoms of Cyprus, was, according to
tradition, founded by Chalcanor. Excavations have shown that the city was inhabited
towards the end of the Late Bronze Age, when the W acropolis became a fortified
stronghold with a cult place. This later became the place of the Temenos of Athena,
whom the Phoenicians identified with their own Anat. On a terrace below the top
of the W acropolis are remains of the royal palace, uncovered by trial excavations.
The summit of the E acropolis was occupied by a Temenos of Aphrodite and in the
narrow valley between the two acropoleis was the Temenos of Apollo, whom the Phoenicians
identified with their Reshef. The Sanctuaries of Aphrodite and of Apollo, summarily
excavated at the end of the 19th century, yielded a series of sculptures of stone
and terracotta dating from the archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods. The
W acropolis was excavated in 1928.
Little is known of the history of Idalion but the name appears on
the prism of Esarhaddon (673-672 B.C.) and the sequence of its kings from the
beginning to the middle of the 5th c. B.C. is fairly well fixed. The city fell
in the siege by the Persians and the Kitians and thereafter was governed by Kition,
which was itself ruled by a Phoenician dynasty. The presence of Phoenicians at
Idalion after its fall is witnessed by inscriptions. The city continued to flourish
throughout the Hellenistic and Graeco-Roman times and, unlike other cities of
Cyprus, seems to have had in the 5th c. B.C. a constitution with some democratic
element. Before falling to the Kitians it issued its own coins, the first of which
date from shortly before 500 B.C. These coins show on the obverse a sphinx and
on the reverse a lotus flower.
Very little survives in the way of monuments, the principal one being
the remains of the Temple of Athena on the summit of the W acropolis. Of the Sanctuaries
of Aphrodite and of Apollo nothing is to be seen. In the necropolis a number of
tombs were excavated but only one tomb can now be viewed within the W necropous.
The Temple of Athena was enclosed by the fortification wall, which
at the same time served as a peribolos wall of the temenos. The first temenos
belongs to Late Cypro-Geometric times but several additions and rebuildings were
made during the Cypro-archaic period until it was finally abandoned at the beginning
of the Cypro-Classical period. Originally it consisted of a chapel and an altar,
the first being a room of the liwan type. Along the SW fortification a hall was
built later which was entered through a gateway opening in the wall and communicated
with the outer temenos. Simultaneously a wall was built to screen the area of
the chapel, which thus became the inner temenos, in the N part of which another
altar was built like the one in the cult chapel. In its final phase it underwent
only minor alterations. Many ex-votos were discovered in these successive sanctuaries.
An archaic tomb in the W necropolis lies close to the road to Dali
from Nisou. A long, narrow stepped dromos cut into the rock leads to the chamber,
which is built with well-dressed stones and has a saddle-shaped roof. The tomb,
although looted in the past, yielded a number of vases and metallic objects.
Casual finds turn up frequently but the most important is an inscribed
bronze tablet, now in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, which was reported
to have been found accidentally in 1850 or before in the Sanctuary of Athena on
the W acropolis. Other finds are in the Cyprus Museum, Nicosia.
K. Nicolaou, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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