As often happens, great discoveries are made by accident. So, in 1961 in Paphos, very close to the city harbour, one of the local farmers, ploughing a field, found an amazing thing - the remains of unique structures from the times of the Roman Empire. Soon an archaeological park was created on this place, which now attracts antiquity lovers from all over the world. At the moment, three of the four main discovered structures are open to tourists - these are houses that belonged to noble Romans, built around the III century AD. They were conventionally named the villas of Dionysus, Aion and Theseus. These ruins got their names thanks to the miraculously preserved mosaics, which decorated the floors and almost completely destroyed walls of these buildings. Each of the mosaics depicts scenes from the life of one of the gods or heroes of ancient times. The beautiful patterns are made of small stone, glass and marble tiles of different colours.
Thus, the most interesting is the House of Dionysus - it is almost 556 square metres of wonderfully preserved mosaic drawings, on which you can see scenes from ancient myths about the god of winemaking Dionysus, as well as images of people intoxicated with wine. On the other villas the mosaics are not so impressive in scale and are not so well preserved, but they are also quite interesting. For example, the scene of Theseus fighting the Minotaur in the house of Theseus and the depiction of the birth of Dionysus in the villa of Ayon are worth a special attention.
The mosaics are considered one of the main attractions of Paphos and have been included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List.
The mosaics are one of the main attractions of Paphos.
