HISTORY ETHNOGRAPHY NATURE WINE-MAKING SITE MAP
Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
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SIR SAMUEL WHITE BAKER
CYPRUS AS I SAW IT IN 1879
page 201

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CYPRUS IN 1879. [CHAP„ quarries into a dock, should a demand for stone be* sufficient to repay the outlay for cutting the supply,! according to the example already exhibited and left! to us by the ancients. The quarries of Kyrenia form the chief curiosity off the locality. The rock is the sedimentary limestonemixed with a proportion of sand that is the character-1 istic geological feature around the coast of Cyprus I but in these quarries the stone is perfectly solid and^ free from fissures, which enables the mason to obtain, blocks of any size. From prehistoric times the rockjj of Kyrenia, which rises about forty feet above the sea-level, has been worked out upon the most careful i method ; every block has been cut from the parent 1 mass by measurement, and no broken edges have been^ permitted to destroy the symmetry of the adjoining) stone. The work was commenced from the top, on surface of the rock, and a smooth cliff face has been! produced as the first operation ; upon completion thèj surface has been lined out parallel with the perpendicular face, and the blocks have been carefully chiselledI and removed by wedges driven horizontally fromj beneath. In this manner the rock has been worked until it resembled a flight of steps, which remain ir| many places perfect to the present hour. The entire fortress and town have been constructed from these quarries, and there can be no doubt that when Kyrenia was originally founded by the Dorian colonists under Cepheus and Praxander the stones were obtained from the existing site. There is a considerable difference. in the quality of the rock] which has been remarked by the original builders] as a passage has been cut through the first cliff face nearest to the town, and the desired level for

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