Kings of Lambousa

The disused Monastery of Akhiropiitos presents a melancholy and blank looking facade on the brink of the sea, not far from the ruins of a Byzantine lighthouse and fishponds. The name signifies 'Built Without Hands', to perpetuate the tradition that the Blessed Virgin translated the monastery in its entirety from Asia Minor in order to prevent its desecration by heathens. Inside the enclosure, surrounded by two-storeyed cloisters and old buildings at present accommodating a family of caretakers and their farm animals, there is a very beautiful church which is of special interest owing to its combination of different periods of architecture, starting with the central double domed and cruciform main construction of the fourteenth century. At the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century, an apse of absurdly large dimensions was substituted for an older one which had fallen into disrepair, and which belonged to the early Christian basilica, the eastern portion of which has been excavated by the Department of Antiquities. The existing large apse is seven sided externally and semicircular within. A narthex and exonarthex were added at the west end in the fifteenth century. The gypsum tomb of the donor of these improvements Alessandro Flatros, who died in 1563 shows him in the court dress of the period. The iconostasis is mainly seventeenth-century workmanship, but it contains a lower panel fashioned from a Byzantine plaque. The majority of the icons were painted in the eighteenth century. The oldest and the most revered, which represents St Veronica and the Holy Handkerchief, was covered with silver-gilt in 1814. This is the object of great veneration, supported by an unsubstantiated legend that the wonder-working handkerchief or shroud was kept here before being taken to Turin by a princess of the House of Savoy.

A great number of sculptured stones from the Roman and Byzantine cities have been brought for safe keeping into the enclosure. Outside, in the midst of a desolation which a combination of circumstances has made a characteristic of many sites in Cyprus, there are two interesting churches absolutely distinct from the monastery. The nearest is the Chapel of St Evlambios, which presents a peculiar aspect because of its original form as a hole hewn in the rock which later was quarried away, leaving the cave chapel standing in one detached block of stone. It is here that beautiful sixth century silver plates depicting the life of King David were found. Some of these are in Room VII of the Cyprus Museum, the remainder being apportioned between the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of New York. They are of additional interest because they bear the signs recognizable as the earliest examples of the hall-marking of silver. The prominent Church of St Evlalios, nearer the sea, dates from the sixteenth century.

The pretty village of Lapithos ( Lapta North Cyprus ) is about a mile beyond Karavas ( Alsancak North Cyprus ) , high above the main road. A second left turn leads up to a perpetual spring which issues from the rock at Kepbalovryso, 850 ft above sea-level. This generous water supply is responsible for the verdancy and the flourishing fruit farms below. It also affected the choice of Lapithos as a Greek settlement, as one of the four principal capitals of the Romans and as a town of ten thousand inhabitants under the Lusignans. Lambousa and Lapithos were not so much one town as two poles between which the population alternated in obedience to the demands of different centuries. Pottery and weaving are traditional industries in the present-day village, but the manufacture of silk cloth is being driven out of existence by the popularity and cheapness of synthetic fibres.