Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1944, Page 100
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LE NORD
element of these, the tripartite presbytery, the transept, the tri-
partite nave and the west tower have complete parallels in some
of the temples at Soli and have their origin explained in the older
temples. The temples at Soli were dedicated to Aphrodite, Isis,
and Sarapis with side-chapels for Eros and Canopus. Further
we may with great probability explain one temple as a Mithreum.
Thus we have at Soli come on the track of some of the long
searched for introductory stages of the earliest Christian church
architecture and have been able to point out how this dates back
to sacral architectural forms that have arisen and developed al-
ready during the Bronze Age in the near Orient. But the temples
are of the greatest interest not only from the point of view of the
history of architecture. Also from the point of view of the history
of religion and because of the remarkable sculptures found in
the temples they are of fundamental importance; for the existence
of a development of sculpture in Cyprus in late Hellenistic and
Roman times has previously been practically unknown. Now
quite a series of remarkable sculptures from these periods were
found at Soli, and in part through their connexion with the
various temples they could be dated and classified, and our
knowledge of the history of Cypriote art could be carried forward
to the close of the ancient epoch.
If the investigations of the temples at Soli yielded a much
richer result than expected, it must be said that the great excava-
tion of the theatre55 to some extent was a disappointment, as
the parts left were badly damaged. Nor, as might have been
expected, were any remarkable findings of inscriptions or sculp-
tures made. The theatre was probably built at the time of Septi-
mius Severus and thus is quite Roman in its form. It is closely re-
lated in the famous and well-preserved theatre at Aspendos in
Asia Minor, with a semicircular auditorium and orchestra and a
large stage.
At Kountoura Trachonia^' a place in the Carpass peninsula,
15 chamber tombs from Hellenistic times, most of them from
the 3rd century B. C., were excavated. The groups of finds
from these tombs are of great importance for Cypro-Hellenistic
55 Swed. Cyp. Exp. III, p. 548
56 Swed. Cyp. Exp■ I, p. 439.