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00:00I'm traveling across the world, exploring secrets and wonders.
00:09This is really tight.
00:11So I asked my friends here if they could get me access off the metro track.
00:16And I 100% definitely got what I asked for.
00:21An adventure by land and sea to the most fascinating places.
00:26It is just extraordinary.
00:29Where I've been given special access to significant and surprising treasures.
00:35Some of the most remarkable artworks to survive from antiquity.
00:40Buried in ancient sites, extraordinary buildings and glorious works of art.
00:47I'm in search of the treasures that help to explain the story of us.
00:53Journey with me to discover how the past shapes our lives today.
00:59I'm exploring one of the largest and most intriguing islands in the Mediterranean.
01:04Seeking out clues of its rich, diverse culture across time.
01:10This place has been at the front line of world events for over 4,000 years.
01:16History has made its mark coast to coast and it's a hot spot of human experience.
01:23The island of Cyprus.
01:27I've been travelling to Cyprus for years and each time I come I learn something new.
01:32Both about what makes this island so special and how all our histories are intimately connected.
01:50Cyprus sits at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa.
01:55For centuries, host to overseas powers and influences.
02:00And in myth, the birthplace of the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite.
02:07For the Romans, Venus.
02:10Aphrodite was famed for her beauty and was the goddess worshipped because she fostered desire.
02:17And we think we know her in the modern world.
02:20But to reveal her secrets and her true story, you have to come here to Cyprus.
02:29Aphrodite was worshipped across the island and, according to legend,
02:33she was born right here on Cyprus' southern coast.
02:40So, the story goes that Gaia, the great goddess of the earth,
02:45was sick of her eternal lovemaking with Uranus, the god of the sky.
02:50So she persuaded her son, Cronos,
02:53to cut off his father's rotting penis and testicles with a flint sickle.
02:59The bloody castrate was thrown into the sea
03:02and from this gory, spewmy mass arose an awful and lovely maiden, Aphrodite.
03:11Understanding Aphrodite is to understand something vital.
03:16Human desire.
03:18Why her worship on Cyprus is my first treasure.
03:22A great place to look for evidence is her nearby sanctuary of Palaeopathos,
03:27a massive precinct devoted to the goddess.
03:31Ancient authors write about this place in incredibly heady terms.
03:37They talk, first of all, of Aphrodite herself coming here,
03:41bathing in ambrosial oil until her skin gleams.
03:46They describe Arabian incense curling up from 100 altars
03:50and the air being sweetened by wreaths of flowers.
03:58The ancients believed that Aphrodite was in charge of nature, birth and death.
04:04In its heyday, this sanctuary thronged with pilgrims,
04:08coming here to seek her help in matters of love and life.
04:15You just have to try to imagine how sensuous it would have been here
04:20because we know that Aphrodite was honoured with offerings of honey and wine
04:27and rose petals, that roses were famously her flower.
04:31This small place was protected by gates of gold.
04:37Hundreds of figurines found here and right across the island
04:42symbolise those who came to adore Aphrodite,
04:46bringing offerings of cakes and other homemade gifts for the goddess.
04:53Mainstream depictions of Aphrodite symbolise her as a classic beauty,
04:58but on Cyprus she had some rather surprising manifestations.
05:06The cult statue of Aphrodite here wasn't the beautiful image of a woman
05:11that you might expect, but this, frankly, rather odd thing.
05:17A lump of black igneous stone, which sources say
05:21was originally painted white and drenched in perfumed oil.
05:25It is strange, isn't it?
05:27But it does have this kind of primal, primordial energy.
05:33Early cults in the East often worshipped abstract objects like this,
05:38but its meaning was lost to later antiquity.
05:41There was one Roman author who said,
05:43the origins of the cult of the goddess in this form are obscure.
05:50This stone is a symbolic reminder that Aphrodite was a creature
05:55of prehistory as well as of classical myth.
06:00So I'm on the hunt to trace the real origins of Cyprus's elusive goddess
06:06via tantalising new archaeology.
06:10First stop, Larnaca District Archaeological Museum.
06:15Last time I was here, I visited some very exciting finds
06:19at a place that's called Hala Sultan Teke.
06:22That site itself is just remarkable because it's an entire Bronze Age city
06:28and those finds in and of themselves are amazing.
06:31But they also really helped me jigsaw puzzle together the story of Aphrodite
06:36and now some of those finds are being scientifically analysed in here.
06:41Collaborating with the University of Gothenburg,
06:44a team from the Cyprus Institute are using 3D scanners
06:48to explore incredible objects found in a communal grave,
06:52personal belongings of inhabitants of this 3,500-year-old city.
06:59This scanning can reveal details unseen to the naked eye,
07:03helping to unlock secrets of these objects' origin, ownership and meaning.
07:08Particularly intriguing because some seem to show connections to Aphrodite.
07:14A lotus pendant and a pomegranate-shaped bead on a child's necklace,
07:19both representations of fertility and rebirth.
07:25And these aren't the only early glimmers of the goddess in this rich burial site.
07:30You've got this beautiful, strange, bird-headed figurine.
07:35Do you think there's any chance that she represents a kind of Eastern influence,
07:40the kind of beginning of an idea of a goddess or a female deity or spirit of some kind?
07:45They are very similar to others from Syria
07:49and when you see two of them next to each other,
07:52the similarities are really striking.
07:56And those figures are related to Astarte.
08:01Astarte, also known as Inanna or Ishtar,
08:04was a goddess with origins in the Near East and Mesopotamia.
08:08A kind of many-times-great-grandmother of Aphrodite,
08:12she wasn't only the deity of sexual love, but of the desire for war.
08:18Cyprus already had its own fertility symbols,
08:21striking statuettes with both male and female genitalia.
08:26So what we're seeing with the life story of Aphrodite on Cyprus
08:30could be a mixing of international and local culture
08:34to create a passionate divinity of life and death
08:38that was new and distinctly Cypriot.
08:41Even if the names of the gods and the goddesses and their shapes change,
08:45the combination of desire of all kinds,
08:49you wonder if you're seeing the origins of those ideas in some of these early objects.
08:53I mean, definitely the female figure in its depiction
08:56is an amazing story from around 9,000 BC in Cyprus up to today.
09:02The typology is quite specific with each period,
09:05so it's a bit of a mystery.
09:08I love the fact the female body is worshipped on Cyprus, I have to say.
09:11I know I shouldn't, but I just, you know, it's really interesting.
09:17One key trigger for this influx of ideas
09:20can be found across the island, deep within the earth.
09:24Now what you're looking at here is slag
09:27that was produced during bronze production
09:30over 3,000 years ago
09:33in an industry that made Cyprus very rich.
09:39Bronze is made from tin,
09:41and it's a very, very rare material.
09:44It's a very, very rare material.
09:47It's a very, very rare material.
09:50It's a very, very rare material.
09:53Bronze is made from tin and copper,
09:56and since prehistory, Cyprus was famous for its rich copper seams.
10:01In fact, copper itself is named
10:04after an ancient word for the island, cupros.
10:08Copper, coming out of the earth here,
10:11was one of the key raw materials of the entire Bronze Age civilisation,
10:15putting Cyprus at the centre of a trading web
10:18stretching from Italy to Mesopotamia,
10:21and later to Egypt.
10:25Copper and bronze were used to make lethal weapons,
10:29but also beautiful things like dinner plates and jewellery and mirrors.
10:35I'm sure that's one of the reasons why Aphrodite is often shown
10:39staring at her own reflection in the mirror,
10:42and I reckon, too, it's probably why she appears
10:45with this kind of coppery blonde hair.
10:48Over time, her cult would infuse the island,
10:51making Cyprus a key destination for religious tourism.
10:55And one of the places people flooded was here,
10:59the cosmopolitan city of Nea Paphos,
11:02my final stop on the journey to discover Aphrodite.
11:08Archaeologists have just identified
11:10what looks like a new temple to the goddess on this hill
11:13and possible ritual banqueting,
11:15where ancient Cypriots could do what Aphrodite loved best,
11:19mix and mingle.
11:23There's also an intriguing series of underground chambers
11:27with some surprising secrets.
11:33A new discovery, a bit tricky to explore,
11:36suggesting Aphrodite's worship here
11:39may well have had a heady, mysterious side.
11:43So the archaeologists working here gave me a tip-off
11:46that they'd discovered something a bit special.
11:49So that's a niche, so it's basically a kind of hole
11:52that a religious object would be put in.
11:54And if you look up at the top,
11:56it pretty much looks like a shell, like a scallop shell.
12:00There's a debate going on amongst the archaeologists at the moment,
12:03but if it is, then a shell is always associated with Aphrodite
12:08because of her birth from the sea
12:10and also a scallop shell looks like the female sex.
12:13So I'd wonder if this is somewhere where people came
12:18for secret, mysterious underground rites in her honour.
12:23I mean, we don't know yet, it's still being debated,
12:26but we will find out. That's amazing.
12:28How amazing to be here. Amazing.
12:33These discoveries are changing what we thought we knew
12:36about the goddess and her cult.
12:39Not just a romantic love deity,
12:41Aphrodite was clearly a complex, potent creature,
12:45and this island holds many of her secrets.
12:48The worship of Aphrodite in Cyprus is a treasure for me
12:52because it short-circuits us into the lives, loves and ambitions
12:56of women and men who lived thousands of years before us
13:00and the symbols that they left behind.
13:09One of the striking things about Cyprus
13:12is the number of shipwrecks that can be found in its waters,
13:16modern and ancient ones alike.
13:19Discoveries from ancient wrecks are currently being studied
13:23by the Department of Antiquities and the University of Cyprus.
13:27Work starting to reveal remarkable things.
13:31Cargoes of ancient wine.
13:342,400-year-old olives and other treasures
13:38from around the eastern Mediterranean.
13:41Evidence that Cyprus, with its strategic position,
13:44was part of an international maritime trade network
13:48long after the Bronze Age.
13:50Now, where you have that kind of wealth and opportunity,
13:55you can expect the Romans to come,
13:58and my next treasure reveals the triumph and the triumph
14:03and the tragedy of Cyprus under Roman rule.
14:11I'm heading to the ancient city of Kourion,
14:14a gorgeous settlement just along Cyprus's southern coast.
14:19This is one of the best-preserved ancient archaeological sites
14:23in Cyprus, an amazing location with a tragic secret.
14:29Kourion was first excavated in the 1930s
14:32by an archaeologist called George McFadden.
14:35Although, actually, he wasn't just an archaeologist.
14:38He was also a World War II spy
14:40who helped facilitate missions here for the Americans
14:43in Cyprus and elsewhere.
14:45McFadden was really troubled by the rise of communism and fascism
14:50and he thought it would help people to understand
14:53and return to the values of civic life from ancient civilisations.
14:58So he was absolutely passionate about his work here in Kourion
15:03and he made some quite remarkable discoveries.
15:10The settlement that McFadden unearthed
15:13was once a jewel of the island.
15:16Originally founded as a Greek colony in the Bronze Age,
15:20its port connected it to maritime communities
15:23across the Mediterranean.
15:25But its heyday was in the Age of Rome.
15:32The Roman generals Julius Caesar and Mark Antony
15:35both gave Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, Cyprus
15:39as a kind of strategic love gift.
15:42But once Cleopatra was defeated, then Rome was in charge here
15:46and, in fact, some of the very finest antiquities here
15:49do date from the time of the Roman Empire.
15:53A theatre for 3,500 people.
15:58A huge stadium, the only one in Cyprus.
16:03The remains of a bathhouse, a grand forum,
16:07a temple expanded under the Roman Emperor Trajan.
16:13Kourion's residents became mega-rich,
16:16partly from trade in things like oil and wine,
16:19but you find these super-rich mansions,
16:22or, you know, what's left of it here for the elite,
16:25packed with the very finest artworks.
16:31This is called the House of the Gladiators for obvious reasons.
16:35I have to say, I hate images of gladiatorial combat
16:38because it's just so awful, isn't it,
16:40to think of these men who were made to suffer for entertainment.
16:44These are two kinds of gladiators called secutores.
16:47Over there, the guy with the full-face helmet,
16:50he's a Thracian or a Thriax,
16:52and that man, who's called Darius, was probably the referee.
16:56So what this does tell us is that here there was a really intense
17:00localised take-up of Roman traditions and Roman leisure activities
17:05by Kourion's elite.
17:08But this charmed life of Roman luxury didn't last forever.
17:13The gifts of the earth that had made these men so rich soon turned sour.
17:19So this is a water trough.
17:21You can see the animals would have been chained up there.
17:24You can see it has been completely shattered into two pieces,
17:28and that damage was the result of an earthquake storm
17:32between around 365 and 370 CE that devastated this city.
17:39The earthquakes tore through Kourion, collapsing many of its homes,
17:44including what archaeologists call the Earthquake House.
17:48Right across the city are signs of this monstrous destruction.
17:55The local museum, once the home of George McFadden,
17:59guards relics of this traumatic event,
18:02and I've been given special access to recent finds.
18:08Dr Tom Davis, who's excavated Kourion with Cypriot
18:12and international colleagues since the 1980s,
18:15discovered some of these precious items.
18:18This is a mosaic glass plate, and as you can see,
18:22it's a magnificently coloured, beautiful mosaic piece of glass.
18:26That is so beautiful!
18:29And it must be rare. You don't find these, I think.
18:32Oh, you don't find these. The only things we know of elsewhere is in Egypt.
18:35It gives us a sense of how rich and connected this city was into the ancient world.
18:40It would have been a beautiful serving plate, kind of a public plate,
18:43you know, for the elegant guests when they come, you'd pull this out.
18:46It was shattered completely in the force of the earthquake.
18:49It gives us a real insight into how powerful this quake was.
18:54Further finds in the museum reveal the terrible fate
18:58suffered by some of the city's inhabitants.
19:02So these poor people were found in the earthquake house?
19:05Yes, they were cowering in a doorway, trying to protect each other.
19:08As you can see, there's the infant, the mother and the father.
19:14A discovery like this reminds us that it's not just archaeology,
19:18that we're dealing with humans, and this is a human tragedy.
19:23It's just terrible to think of the trauma that they went through,
19:28you know, the fear.
19:29Obviously, they're huddling together for protection.
19:32Can you tell how quickly they died?
19:34Very fast. You can see the skull's completely crushed in his case.
19:38It would have been in the aftershocks,
19:40a wall obviously came down right on top of them.
19:43We had probably 12 sets of human remains we found now in just two houses,
19:47so this shattered this community.
19:49But they were left in the house, they weren't removed or reburied?
19:53Well, that's one of the really special things about this.
19:56Either the family never survived,
19:58or the neighbourhood itself was completely destroyed
20:01because they were left as they were in that moment of time.
20:06I wonder if almost there was a sort of sense that it was such a tragedy,
20:09it's almost as if they're being dealt with like radioactive waste,
20:12you know, people didn't want to disturb them.
20:14Their community is wiped out.
20:16And how do you respond to that?
20:18And that's kind of the question of Corian.
20:22Corian had suffered a hammer blow,
20:24but its spirit wasn't entirely crushed.
20:28And we know that because this extraordinary mosaic that survived.
20:33So what you're looking at here is Greek poetry
20:36that's written in an ancient Greek form,
20:39and it was dedicated by this man, Eustolius,
20:42who has remembered with love the city even through its abject misery.
20:47Before, the city's guardian had been Phoebus Apollo,
20:51but now there is a new protector of this earth-struck land.
20:59Eustolius built a lavish home, but it wasn't for himself.
21:04It was a refuge for the needy of Corian's population
21:07on behalf of a higher power.
21:10So the clues as to who they thought was now looking for
21:14So the clues as to who they thought was now looking after the city
21:18comes in this second mosaic.
21:20So just look at the images you've got here.
21:23There are two fish and various birds,
21:26possibly representing peace and prosperity.
21:29Some people think that these are crosses,
21:32but the evidence is really nailed by this poem.
21:36So now we hear that Corian is girt by the much-venerated Sumata Christou.
21:43The symbols of Christ.
21:49Christianity was already gaining momentum.
21:52Were these earthquakes a catalyst for change?
21:58Certainly, this city's elite employed a new language of symbols
22:02to communicate their sense of community in the face of disaster.
22:08Corian is a reminder that nature can give and it can take away,
22:14but it's also an incarnation of the power of human resilience
22:19across time and in the face of the very greatest adversity.
22:31Cyprus is known for its fabulous beaches,
22:34but it's actually an island with a great variety of landscapes.
22:40Now I'm travelling to the Trudos mountain region,
22:44an area of stunning natural beauty formed, like the island itself,
22:49by the collision of African and European tectonic plates,
22:54home to some wonderful historical gems.
23:00My next treasure reveals the symbolic art created
23:03as medieval Cyprus became a theatre of power for East and West alike.
23:12Over 200 beautiful churches are scattered in the Trudos mountains,
23:18and I'm interested in what some choice examples reveal
23:23about Cyprus under the Byzantine Empire,
23:26the imperial, early medieval Christian dynasty
23:29which took over the Eastern Roman world.
23:33I'm starting my investigation at one of the area's most intriguing churches,
23:38the Monastery of St John Lampedistus.
23:44In here you can find the secrets of Cyprus's medieval past
23:49and you can find out about the intrigues of the power players of the day.
23:56And there's a service. There's a service going on.
24:04It's a real treat to see this.
24:10Young and old still travelling from surrounding villages in the mountains
24:14to take part in mass.
24:25And sometimes to leave curious wax offerings,
24:29symbols of devotion, just as ancient people did for their gods,
24:34including Aphrodite.
24:36With the service over,
24:38I've got a chance to explore the church's exquisite decoration.
24:45In many ways, this is a kind of perfect little Byzantine church.
24:49So if you look up there, for instance,
24:51at this amazing image of Christ, Pantocrator, Christ all-powerful,
24:55you'd find pictures like that in the very finest churches in Constantinople.
25:01But they're not just churches.
25:04If you know how to read them, they're also ciphers for history.
25:11This church's wall paintings,
25:13which date to between the 11th and the 16th centuries,
25:17are packed with clues to the political and cultural influences
25:21in Cyprus at this time.
25:26So this panel shows the passion of Christ
25:30when Christ was being taken to be crucified.
25:33And there are a couple of really interesting things about it.
25:36Those soldiers there, the flag that they're carrying
25:39has a red crescent moon on it.
25:41We often associate a crescent moon with Islam,
25:44but back then it was actually a symbol of Constantinople.
25:48Also, if you look at those soldiers,
25:50they're meant to be Roman soldiers, of course,
25:53but they're dressed in medieval armour,
25:56and that's because this was painted right at the same time as the Crusades.
26:03The Crusades were military missions between the 11th and 16th centuries
26:08which saw thousands of European Christian knights
26:11descend on the Holy Land to claim it for themselves.
26:14And the story of how Cyprus got embroiled in the Crusades
26:18is a plot worthy of Game of Thrones.
26:23A Byzantine prince called Isaac forged documents
26:27that meant he could lay claim to Cyprus.
26:30Now, Richard the Lionheart from England was sailing through these waters
26:34and ahead of him was his fiancée and his sister
26:37who were caught up in a terrible storm, wrecked on the shores of Cyprus
26:41and were then taken prisoner and kidnapped, in effect, by Isaac.
26:45Richard the Lionheart was so furious about this
26:48he tore to Cyprus to rescue his damsels in distress.
26:54There's a fantastic detail which says that Isaac begged
26:57not to be shackled in chains of iron,
27:00so Richard, in his cunning, made his chains instead of silver,
27:04imprisoning Isaac and taking Cyprus for his own.
27:13From 1191, Cyprus was in crusader hands
27:18and influences from Western culture start to creep into these churches.
27:24A wooden panel reveals double-headed eagles,
27:28symbols of Constantinople, right next to rampant lions,
27:32an emblem of a noble French family called the Lucignans,
27:36who Richard the Lionheart sold Cyprus to just a year after he'd conquered it.
27:43But why are there so many of these churches up in the mountains?
27:47There are more in this concentrated area of Cyprus
27:50than anywhere else in the Byzantine Empire.
27:54I'm hoping another church, Panagia Tuoraca,
27:57decorated the year after the crusader takeover, might offer some answers.
28:03Medieval historian Angel Nicolaou Konari
28:06is passionate about the story this church's art tells.
28:10Hello. Is it Angel? Hello! Hello, I'm Bethany!
28:14I'm good. How lovely to meet you.
28:16Thank you for inviting me here, cos I've never been before.
28:19It's fantastic, isn't it?
28:21I mean, it's like a jewel box of colour. It is.
28:24So tell me one thing.
28:26I mean, I'd expect there to be churches in lots of local villages,
28:30but there are so many up here in the mountains.
28:33There are several reasons after Richard the Lionheart
28:36and after the settlement of the Lucignans,
28:39some of the Greek nobility retreated on the mountains.
28:46They lost all their class privileges
28:48and they couldn't stay in the towns where the new aristocracy settled.
28:53And is there evidence of that here?
28:55Well, this is the dedicatory inscription,
28:58and it says that someone called Leon Duafendou,
29:03which means Leo, son of the Lord,
29:07is the donor for the decoration of this church.
29:10I like the fact that he's written this
29:12all underneath an image of Christ as well,
29:14so it's quite a prominent position, isn't it? Of course, of course.
29:18We don't know for sure, you know, if he had to escape the Franks,
29:24but there were donors responsible
29:27for the building and decoration of these churches.
29:32The displaced Greek aristocracy
29:34poured their love and money into these churches.
29:38There are other touching clues
29:40to just how traumatic they must have found this experience.
29:46This is sort of supplication to the Virgin Mary,
29:50and this inscription says,
29:52Me, Leon Duafendou, and my wife and my children and my servants,
29:57we request your help in this dire situation.
30:02Please keep us happy and save our souls.
30:06It might indicate that it was indeed
30:09a difficult period of time for the Cypriots.
30:13And this lovely, sympathetic-looking Mary...
30:17Mary, yes.
30:19..she seems full of sorrow, you know, as though she's sad.
30:22Of course. So humane, isn't she?
30:25But it wasn't always to be such a desperate situation.
30:30Over time, the Cypriots and the Lusignans became more integrated,
30:35explaining the mix of symbols seen in some of the churches.
30:40I mean, I love the fact that you've got all these
30:43hidden messages and stories in the walls.
30:46Thank you for showing me how to decode them and read them.
30:49You're welcome.
30:51But as I leave the church, there's a surprising turn of events.
30:58The weather seems to have set in somewhat,
31:01so I'm suddenly really realising how remote these mountains are.
31:07I'm kind of living the historical experience,
31:10because, like those communities of the Medieval period,
31:13there's so much to see and so much to do.
31:16I'm kind of living the historical experience,
31:18because, like those communities of the Medieval world,
31:21it looks like I'm going to be hanging out here for a bit longer.
31:29I've been stranded up in these mountains before,
31:32and the monasteries here have a reputation
31:35for taking in waifs and strays,
31:37so I'm going to see if anyone's at home.
31:41Hello. Hello, Father. Hello.
31:43Hello. Good day. Welcome.
31:45Thank you, thank you. How lovely to be here.
31:47It's such a beautiful church, this is.
31:49First time?
31:50I came once before, maybe 20 years ago,
31:53and somebody invited me in here
31:56and gave me some food and drink when I was lost,
31:59so I thought I'd come again today.
32:01If you have a little bit of time,
32:03can I invite you to a subject to drink?
32:06I'd love that. Thank you. Welcome.
32:12Traditionally, monastic communities here
32:15had to be pretty much self-sufficient,
32:18which included making their own wine.
32:22Please welcome.
32:23Oh, thank you.
32:24This is our guest room.
32:25Yes, thank you.
32:27If you want to try commanderia, we have rosé, red wine,
32:33red, dry wine.
32:35Well, I could try them all, but maybe start with this.
32:39This is the commanderia wine.
32:41Yes, it's one of the oldest wines in the world, liquor wine.
32:45It's a bit like liquor wine, it's quite delicious, actually.
32:48And I think the story goes that it's called commanderia
32:51because the Knights Templar, the Crusader Knights, were here.
32:55Thank you. This is great.
32:58The commander of the Knights Templar gave his name to this wine
33:03and it became so famous, it was described as the king of wines
33:07and a wine for kings, and it was considered so good,
33:10the story goes, that Richard the Lionheart,
33:12when he eventually married his fiancée,
33:14he drank this at his wedding.
33:16So, yamas.
33:17Welcome.
33:19Yamas.
33:20Yamas.
33:24Oh, that's going to...
33:26Oh, that's going to keep...
33:28That's very good, that's going to keep the chill of the snow out today.
33:32Thank you, brother, you're very kind.
33:35Thank you very much.
33:38To me, the art of these churches and the communities around them
33:42are a true treasure of this island.
33:46Not only are these buildings beautiful,
33:49but if you know how to decode them,
33:51you can find the story of medieval Cyprus hidden on
33:55and inside their walls.
34:04Cyprus is a treasure trove of amazing historical riches.
34:11Especially its capital, Nicosia.
34:16The rich architecture here reflects those who controlled it.
34:22The Venetians, who desired Cyprus partly for its trade with the East,
34:27the Ottomans and even the British.
34:31But I'm here to witness something extremely unusual.
34:36Following conflict between Greek and Turkish populations
34:40in the 1960s and 70s,
34:42a huge slice of this city has been off-limits to most,
34:45including its own inhabitants.
34:49What's behind this roadblock is a ghost town.
34:52Now, for me as a historian, in some ways it's remarkable
34:56because what's in there has lain pretty much untouched
34:59since it was barricaded off half a century ago.
35:02It's very, very difficult to get access,
35:05but the UN's given me an opportunity to investigate.
35:10The United Nations have been custodians of this area since 1974,
35:16keeping the peace between both sides.
35:19As it's still strongly contested,
35:21I need to be chaperoned by one of their daily patrols.
35:27This is obviously a very sensitive area,
35:29so I'm actually not sure whether I'm allowed to talk to you yet.
35:33But I'm coming up here to meet the colonel.
35:36Morning. Are you Colonel Hanson?
35:38Yes, I'm John Hanson. I'm the chief of staff for UNFICYP. Welcome.
35:41Thank you. I'm Bethany Hughes. Nice to meet you.
35:44Thank you so much for letting us in, because talk about a unique place.
35:49Well, it is unique. It's a chance in a lifetime for many people,
35:53so I hope you find what you're looking for.
35:55You tell me what I can and can't do. I'm sticking with you.
35:58Certainly will. Certainly will. Don't worry.
36:01Known as the Green Line,
36:03this charged treasure is a ceasefire buffer zone
36:07which cuts the island in two.
36:09To the south lies the Greek-speaking Republic of Cyprus
36:13and to the north, the self-administered Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
36:18And the buffer zone carves a line
36:21straight through the centre of Nicosia itself.
36:26Here, in some places,
36:28people are able to pass between the two sides via checkpoints,
36:32but no-one except the UN can enter the buffer zone.
36:38It's so ironic, isn't it,
36:40having a lunch either side.
36:42It's just unbelievable, isn't it?
36:44Greek secrets and the Turkish area here.
36:47Unbelievable.
36:49Shall we go through? Yes.
36:54Following several centuries of rule by the Turkish Ottomans
36:57and later by the British,
36:59Cyprus finally won its independence in 1960
37:02and the Republic of Cyprus was created.
37:06But there followed a period of intense political unrest
37:10between Greek and Turkish populations
37:13as Cyprus struggled to define its identity.
37:21In 1964, the British Major General in charge of the Peace Force
37:25took a blunt green Chinagraph pencil
37:28and drew a temporary ceasefire line through the city.
37:32A decade later, that line became impassable
37:36and the city was divided into two.
37:41In 1974, this band,
37:44which ran directly through the centre of Nicosia,
37:47was suddenly abandoned
37:49and these streets are a time capsule
37:52of how they were in that moment.
37:55I'm immensely privileged to be allowed to come here
37:59as many of those who lived and worked in these streets
38:02are unable to access what was once their own.
38:09Oh, look at this.
38:13So, this is just obviously, you know, a regular store
38:17and you can hear the calls of prayer has just started.
38:20That's amazing, isn't it?
38:22Because this is a Greek shop.
38:25Wow.
38:27All these objects are completely ordinary things
38:31but they've become extraordinary because of how they were left.
38:35So, the newspapers, I bet there'll be a date on one of these.
38:4022nd of January, 1973,
38:43so just the year before this all fell apart.
38:49So, that is the thing about history,
38:51because everything that's been touched by human hands
38:54matters through time,
38:56but when things like this are left,
38:58they become completely freighted with meaning and with memory.
39:06It's very moving, coming here.
39:12This is a former car garage
39:14and while much of the building has been stripped,
39:17over 50 cars remain.
39:19Second Lieutenant Dan Tao, another UN peacekeeper,
39:23knows more about the relics in his care.
39:26This area had a big Toyota dealership
39:28and all these brand-new cars would come in through Famagusta
39:31and all of them would be driven directly to Nicosia and then sold.
39:34Every single car will have between 30 and 50 miles on the board.
39:38Can you see it on here?
39:40Let's check.
39:43OK, so this one, 37.5 miles.
39:47So that's just a 37.5-mile lifespan as an active car.
39:52Ready to sell and then the Warbroke Company would buy them.
39:56I mean, all of that, just that flash of time,
40:00as you say, it is literally a time capsule.
40:03But it's not only objects which have been trapped in time here.
40:07The architecture of this place
40:09is also a record of the city's rich heritage.
40:12This former primary school,
40:14its walls now riddled with bullet holes,
40:17is a beautiful example of neoclassical design.
40:22And the Ledra Palace,
40:24which was built in the 17th century,
40:26was built in the 17th century.
40:30And the Ledra Palace, now the UN's crumbling base,
40:34was once the most glamorous hotel in all of Nicosia,
40:38a 1940s Italianate design
40:41where the creme de la creme of European and Middle Eastern elites
40:45would rub shoulders and sip cocktails together.
40:48When the Green Line came down, all the parties suddenly stopped.
40:54And one of the most impressive historical monuments
40:57are the city walls, dating to the time of Venetian control.
41:05The walls and their fortifications
41:07originally went right the way round the city
41:10and actually they became a symbol for Nicosia.
41:13And when you look at beautiful historical maps like this,
41:17you can see an image of the city
41:20and when you look at beautiful historical maps like this,
41:23you can see and you can just feel how ridiculous, how terrible it is
41:27that this is a city that's been divided in half.
41:32For Greeks and Turkish Cypriots alike,
41:34the buffer zone is steeped in personal memory
41:37and symbols of their identity.
41:41One of the narrowest points of the buffer zone,
41:44the so-called Spear Alley,
41:46is a symbol of devastating violence over the right to this land.
41:52One night, a Turkish soldier decided to put a bayonet
41:55on the end of his broom handle and try to stab the Greek soldier.
42:00Whether it's true or not, I don't know,
42:02but this place did cause escalations from time to time.
42:06It's just a madness, isn't it,
42:08that there is a divide like this in the centre?
42:11Yes, sad. It's very sad.
42:13What do you think is the answer?
42:15I think the solution is dispelling the fear of the other side.
42:18Wordsworth's poet has a beautiful line where he says
42:21humans have different faces but we all share one human heart
42:25and, you know, you can't say better than that.
42:27Yeah.
42:29But over the past 50 years,
42:31there have been rare flashes of harmony between both sides.
42:35One relates to an incredible woman called Annie who lived right here.
42:41Now, Annie was a woman who was born in 1900,
42:45but she refused point-blank to leave in 1974 when the city was divided,
42:51and so UN peacekeepers had to take her in and out
42:54of one of these gates to get her shopping.
42:57And when she eventually died in 1991,
43:00she'd become such a cause celebre,
43:02such a symbol of resistance and tenacity,
43:05that her funeral was actually the first ever bi-communal event
43:09of the buffer zone,
43:11attended by Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots alike.
43:18And today, there are also glimmers of a more peaceful future.
43:22A shared sense of responsibility has brought some people together
43:26from both sides to work on restoring their mutual heritage.
43:31And a new state-of-the-art VR project by the Cyprus Institute
43:35is capturing the historic buildings here digitally,
43:38so the next generation of Cypriots will understand their history.
43:47Elsewhere, at the old Nicosia Airport,
43:49there's something else bringing people together.
43:54In 1968, this terminal building was opened
43:58as a cutting-edge development, costing over a million pounds.
44:02But six years later, it found itself in the heart of the buffer zone.
44:07And now it's succumbed to Mother Nature.
44:13There's a very strange beauty to this place.
44:16Because humans haven't been here for close on 50 years,
44:19unwittingly, in a way, the buffer zone has become
44:22a kind of nature sanctuary.
44:24So there are very rare birds and plants and animals here.
44:30Rare mouflon, a type of endangered sheep,
44:34which have been on Cyprus for 10,000 years,
44:37are now making a resurgence in some areas along the buffer zone.
44:41An expression of hope in this wilderness.
44:46And it's this precious new world which some Greek and Turkish Cypriots
44:50are working together to try to protect.
44:55It's a humbling thought that a shared responsibility
44:58for this fragile, sleeping beauty
45:01could perhaps become a catalyst for change.
45:04And that is why the buffer zone is a treasure for me.
45:17Cyprus's natural riches and its strategic location
45:21have been both a great blessing and, at times, a curse.
45:28One Arab geographer of the 10th century wrote that this is an island
45:32that is in the power of whichever nation is overlord in the region.
45:37And it's certainly been host to a maelstrom of cultures and influences,
45:42although Cyprus never really seems to have lost sense of itself.
45:48This beautiful land forged treasures that represented the things
45:53that really mattered to women and men from prehistory onwards,
45:58and some of the symbols they left behind still speak to us today.
46:17Transcription by ESO. Translation by —
46:47Transcription by ESO. Translation by —