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Notes
Voyage de Jacques Le Saige… (ed. Duthillœul, 1851), pp. 138‑139; Cobham 1908, p. 58: “Then I breakfasted very well, thanks be to God, and then went to rest in the great church called S. Sophia, which is a very beautiful little church….. Many pilgrims have made their marks and set their names on the walls; I saw the name of Jehan Potiez of Mons near one of the entrances”.
Other historical references to graffiti in Saint Sophia are by Pierre le Boucq, see Grivaud 2013, p. 499, n. 38 and Enlart 1987, pp. 124‑125, and for the Royal Chapel (Pyrga) ibid., pp. 332‑334.
GRAFMEDIA “GRAffiti MEDiterranean DIAlogue: Visual and verbal communication in the Medieval and Early Modern Adriatic and Eastern Mediterranean” is a RIF – MSCA 2nd opportunity funded project. The aim of the project is twofold. The methodological goal is to develop specific digital tools for the documentation and visualisation of graffiti and their context, while establishing a methodology based on ontological description and standards, still not available for graffiti studies. The research output is to verify the consistency and typologies of graffiti on selected sites along the sea routes between Venice and Jerusalem, with Cyprus as a key point. Through the study of the collected material, GRAFMEDIA aims to draw shared models and ways of communication of people living and travelling in the eastern Mediterranean.
Lovata, Olton 2015, mainly pp. 11‑20, 139‑141.
Van Belle, Brun 2020, pp. 44‑53.
Di Stefano Manzella 1987, pp. 51‑64.
Plesh 2010, Champion 2017, Ritsema van Eck 2018.
Champion 2017, pp. 18‑21.
http://cif.icomos.org/pdf_docs/Documents%20on%20line/Heritage%20definitions.pdf.
Ashworth 2011, pp. 4‑13.
Fleming 2001; Baird, Taylor 2011; Lovata Olton 2015; Ragazzoli et al. 2018.
https://www.lexico.com/definition/vandalism.
Ross 2016; Vanderveen, van Eijk 2016; Avramidis, Tsilimpounidi 2017.
Ross 2016.
Vanderveen, van Eijk 2016; Bloch 2016. For contemporary graffiti in Cyprus see Karathanasis 2010; Leventis 2017.
Flower 2006.
Plesch 2002a, p. 140; Lori Sanfilippo, Rigon 2010.
Di Stefano Manzella 1987, p. 60; Giovè Marchioli 2010.
Stylianou, Stylianou 1997, p. 330; Perdikis, Myrianthefs 2009, pp. 62‑73.
Stylianou, Stylianou 1997, pp. 84‑89.
Kaffenberger 2016, vol. 2, pp. 159‑160.
Maguire 1995, p. 66.
Gerstel 2015, pp. 156‑157, 161.
Van Belle, Brun 2020, pp. 63‑69.
Van Belle, Brun 2020, pp. 39‑41.
Van Belle, Brun 2020, mainly p. 84.
Champion 2017, pp. 32‑33.
Carletti 1980, pp. 25‑26.
Enlart 1987, pp. 174‑200; Olympios 2013.
They are members of the following families: Farkoa (Trentin 2019, p. 351), Wilkinson (Trentin 2019, p. 364), Michele Cirilli (Trentin 2019, p. 367), Porry (Kyriazis 1946, p. 39), Caprara (Trentin 2019, p. 347), Catticich/Cativich (Trentin 2019, p. 348), Malagamba (Trentin 2019, p. 355), Dandolo (Trentin 2019, p. 350). Other commemorative graffiti by Larnaca families are scratched on the sarcophagus in front of the refectory’s door (Van Belle, Brun 2020, pp. 90‑92).
Hadjikyriakos 2018.
On 27th July 1817 Stefano Saletovich and Elena Rovetti celebrated their wedding at Marino Mattei’s (Consul of Ragusa) holiday home in Kyrenia. In the act the priest refers to the village of Kyrenia as luogo di villeggiatura (holiday resort): Trentin 2019, p. 176.
Handley 2017, p. 569.
Vasilis Grigorovich Barsky was a Russian monk who travelled extensively across Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean for 24 years (1723-1747) before returning to Kyiv. During his long-lasting trip, he kept an accurate account of the places he visited, enriched with drawings, which constitutes a precious source for the social and cultural history of the 18th century. He visited Cyprus four times, and during his last stay (1734-1736), in addition to the narration of his pilgrimage and the depiction of some of the monasteries and churches he visited, he left five graffiti (fig. 4). In this case, we know with certainty that Barsky visited the places where graffiti are preserved, and from his Greek notations sometimes present in his drawings – the manuscript is in Russian – we also have a palaeographic comparison which further confirms the authenticity of the graffiti. Thanks to the accuracy of Barsky’s travelogue, it is possible to follow him step by step and see the places he visited through his eyes. Moreover, we can share his experience by reading his manuscript and integrating a missing part with the material evidence of graffiti. Grishin 1996, Della Dora 2016, Agayerv 2019.
Kaffenberger 2016, vol. 2, pp. 113‑115.
Stylianou, Stylianou 1997, pp. 53‑75.
Schryver, Schabel 2003, p. 329.
Kraack 1997.
The project ‘KARABOI: The Ship Graffiti on the Medieval and post-Medieval Monuments of Cyprus: Mapping, Documentation and Digitisation’ (2014-2016) was coordinated by prof. Stella Demesticha (ARU) and funded by Leventis Foundation Committee and the University of Cyprus. The project performed an extensive survey on the island for the first time, collecting and studying the Cypriot ship graffiti. This study has contributed to developing and testing new digital approaches for the documentation and analysis of ship graffiti and their context from a micro to a macro scale. The result was an original insight on Cypriot past landscape and society, enhancing our knowledge about maritime activities from an original perspective, recovering information otherwise not recorded by traditional sources. https://www.ucy.ac.cy/marelab/en/research/karaboi
Demesticha et al. 2017, pp. 371‑372.
Stylianou, Stylianou 1997, pp. 419‑421.
A complete site’s description enhancing the role of Agia Solomoni and Agios Lambrianos as shrines is offered in a forthcoming contribution by Philippe Trélat, with exhaustive bibliography (Trélat, forthcoming).
For other contributions on Agia Solomoni’s graffiti, see Meinardus 1969; Kraack 1997, pp. 106‑108; Volanakis 2001.
About the origin of Karamanlidika and its development between the 18th and 19th centuries see Irakleous 2013. Karamanlidika graffiti in the church of Agios Ioannis Lampadistis are presented in the contribution of Irakleous and Bakirtzis in this issue.
Foulias, Hadjichristodoulou 2019, p. 34.
Champion forthcoming.
If we consider, for example, heraldry, the name of a noble drawn in elegant cursive is not as effective as the depiction of his coat of arms. While in the first case the characteristics and elegance of writing indicate a good knowledge and practice of letters, which can indicate the high rank of the text’s author, on the other hand, a coat of arms is immediately recognised and associated with the noble sphere beyond the degree of literacy of the audience. Furthermore, heraldry has a formal standardisation that makes coats of arms universally recognisable and associates them with nobility. An inscription containing the name of a noble does not have the same communicative effectiveness as, in the absence of titles or attributes relating to the person, even those who can read will hardly be able to associate it with the corresponding social status.
An example is provided by a group of material called ‘lightning’ due to their zig‑zag shape. There are still no explanations or interpretations for these forms, though they have been documented in England (there is no specific study, but they are listed within the ‘apotropaic types’ within the graffiti collected by the Norfolk Medieval Graffiti Survey: http://www.medieval-graffiti.co.uk/page57.html), in Italy (Trentin 2011, p. 214) and in Cyprus (Trentin 2018). Their regional diffusion indicates that they are not random forms, and their frequency suggests that they had a meaning or a function within their communities. Unfortunately, the lack of comparisons with other contexts and the inability to find information about their possible value have often excluded them from documentation and study. Despite the absence of information and knowledge, these graffiti express an interaction and testify an act which needs to be considered within the whole panorama of graffiti.
Lohmann 2020, p. 41, n. 15.
Fleming 2001, p. 38.
Bertocci, Verdiani, Şevketoǧlu 2018.
Demesticha et al. 2017, p. 378.
Demesticha et al. 2017, p. 376.
Demesticha et al. 2017, p. 376.
Demesticha et al. 2017, p. 367.
Demesticha et al. 2017, p. 372, fig. 20.
Sergi 2000, pp. 3‑12.
Demesticha et al. 2017, pp. 370, 374. The paper collects an updated and exhaustive bibliography on ship graffiti.
In this regard, a significant example is the Kykkos Monastery, one of the main pilgrimage sites on the island. The current form of the monastery is the result of several interventions following the fires that damaged the complex (14th c., 16th c., mid‑18th c. and 1813) (Chrysochou 2019, pp. 88‑92). Despite the many changes and renovations that have affected both the church and the monastic structure, some graffiti are still preserved. These are inscriptions in Greek and Karamanlidika traced with black pigment – probably ink – on the architrave of the south-east door of the church (fig. 6). The majority of inscriptions record the date, name and sometimes the origin and the reason for the visit – the pilgrimage. The dates, where preserved and visible, are all within the second half of the 18th century (1767-1796), roughly a decade after the last great fire that damaged the church. The high concentration of inscriptions on the lintel is comparable to what is visible in Bellapais Abbey (fig. 3). Here many graffiti have been traced in black colour on the architrave of the refectory’s western door, indicating that their writers were not discouraged by the height of the surface (between 2.5 and 3 meters in both sites). The difference between the two sites, however, is that while in Bellapais Abbey non-restored surfaces still preserve their graffiti, in Kykkos, unfortunately, most of the surfaces have been replaced and restored numerous times, erasing any graffiti they may have had. The link between the absence of graffiti and the refurbishment of decorative and architectural surfaces in Kykkos is further confirmed by graffiti evidence inside the rooms that once housed visitors and worshippers. Some Greek inscriptions dated between 1842 and 1850 have been documented on the few plaster fragments left in place to date. The chronology of these graffiti is in line with the restorations that took place in the cells and the guesthouse after the 1813 fire. During the subsequent reconstruction and reparations, the old plaster, together with the damaged structures, was replaced, erasing any previous graffiti but creating new surfaces suitable to be inscribed.
Demesticha et al. 2017, p. 370.
Trentin 2010, pp. 310‑311.
Trentin 2010, p. 312.
Demesticha et al. 2017, pp. 353‑354.
Trentin 2010, pp. 304‑305; Demesticha et al. 2017, p. 377.
Trentin 2010, p. 367.
Enlart 1987, pp. 124‑125; Trentin 2010, p. 308.
Stylianou 1957, p. 57.
Demesticha et al. 2017 p. 376.
Demesticha et al. 2017, p. 376.
Stylianou 1957, p. 65.
Hani 1996.
Treffort 2003; Yasin 2015; Ritsema van Eck 2018; Plesch 2002a.
The correlation of Form, Content and Space and their mutual relevance for the description and analysis of Medieval and Early Modern graffiti are explored in a forthcoming paper (Papers from the Institute of Archaeology-University College London).
Meinardus 1970-1972; Westerdahl 2013, Champion 2015, pp. 83‑96.
Plesch 2010 pp. 156‑161, Lohmann 2020.
Plesch 2002b, pp. 168‑170; eadem 2010 pp. 157‑162; Yasin 2015.
Van Belle, Brun 2020, pp. 30‑38.
The shortest form consists only of the date, name, religious position and provenance, without the frame drawn in all other cases, and is located in Apostolos Andreas chapel close to Kykkos monastery. It records “Βασίλειος μοναχος Μοσκοβόρρωσος 1735” (Basil, the Moscovite Russian monk, 1735): Stylianou 1957, p. 65. The most articulate inscription is found in Agios Nikolaos tis Stegis, on the pillar to the left of the iconostasis, under St. Peter’s feet: “*1735* / Αναβὰς ἀπὸ τῆς τρικουκιάς /εἰς τό Τροοδος κ(α)ι ιστορίσας τους ἐκεῖσε / χιόνας, τό θ’ ὕδωρ τῶν αετῶν τὴν θαυμαστὴν / μπαμπακόπετραν καὶ τὸν ἅγιον Μάμαντα τὸν / κουρεμένον τό δε λεβάδιον τοῦ μπασιὰ και έτερα/ ῆλθον ακολούθως καὶ πρὸς τὴν δὲ σεβασμίαν /μονήν προσκυνήσεως χάριν ἐγὼ ὁ ἐν μο/ναχοῖς ἐλάχιστος Βασίλειος Μοσκο/βορρώτθος Κιεβοπολίτης ὁ καὶ περι/ηγήτης. Ιουλίου λ΄” (1735. I climbed up from Trikoukkias to Troodos and I described Chiònas, Loumata ton aeton, the marvelous asvestos and St. Mamas Kouremenos, and Livadi tou Pashà and other [places]. Afterwards I came to the holy monastery to worship. I, the humblest among the monks, Basili Moscovite, Russian monk from Kiev and traveller. 30th July): Stylianou 1957, p. 92. Here not only does Barsky record his passage but he also adds many details that bring the graffito closer to his narration. The 11‑lines text is surrounded by a circular frame decorated with leaves that are joined in a motif containing a cross. Barsky’s content and graphic form appear to adapt to the site and the specific location within site. In a remote site, such as Apostolos Andreas chapel in Kykkos forest, form and content are essential, while in Agios Nikolaos tis Stegis and Agios Ioannis Lampadistis, two major Cypriot shrines, the form and content are elaborated and refined. Barsky’s travel and graffiti across Cyprus are studied and analysed in a paper in preparation.
Trentin 2010, p. 300.
Trentin 2010, p. 304.
Schryver, Schabel 2003, pp. 329‑331.
Kraack 1997, pp. 94‑108.
The use of coats of arms by local families linked with Venice and the West through economic and political interests is attested for only a few cases, such as the Podocataro family (Trentin 2016, p. 303).
Champion 2015, pp. 61‑69.
Some sites preserving graffiti with crosses are described in Trentin 2010, pp. 305, 307‑309; Kaffenberger 2016, p. 198, and Borowsky 2019, pp. 98‑99 (crosses carved on the Armenian church of Famagusta).
Foulias 2005, p. 130; Trentin 2010, p. 307; Foulias, Hadjicristodoulou 2019, pp. 55‑59.
For a detailed analysis of memorial graffiti inscription see Champion 2019.
Foulias, Hadjichristodoulou 2019, p. 58.
Plesch 2002a, pp. 140‑142.
Champion 2019.
See Irakleous and Bakirtzis in this volume.
Plesch 2005, pp. 187‑188.
For an overview of possible functions of ship graffiti in England, but potentially applicable to other contexts, see Champion 2015, pp. 83‑96.
Champion 2012.
Hutton 2016.
Champion 2015, p. 25.
Champion 2016, pp. 23‑24.
Rizopoulou-Egoumenidou, Seretis 2000.
Rizopoulou-Egoumenidou, Seretis 2000, p. 420.
Champion 2016, pp. 29‑30.
Stylianou, Stylianou 1997, pp. 90‑96.
These geometrical forms found in the apse of Timios Stavros in Pelendri could be dated, despite the simplicity of the motifs. The Pelendri graffiti were in a sealed context which allowed to establish a timeframe for their creation. They are scratched on a fresco decoration dated to 1178 thanks to a commemorative inscription still visible. This layer was discovered during a 1990s restoration by the Department of Antiquities (ARDAC 1991, p. 24; ARDAC 1992, p. 25) under a later layer of frescoes dating to the 14th century (Stylianou, Stylianou 1997, pp. 507‑510). When the Department decided to detach the upper layer, the 12th‑century frescoes were brought to light with many graffiti scratched on them. This lucky discovery reveals that these forms have been in use at least since the 13th century.
http://www.medieval-graffiti.co.uk/graffiti%20types4.pdf.
An argument supporting this hypothesis is provided by Barsky’s experience. Despite his enlightening habit of observing and describing places, people and traditions, there is no mention of the graffiti in his detailed account (Della Dora 1996); neither of those already present in the places he visited nor of those made by him and preserved in five of the churches he visited. On the other hand, Barsky never mentions the personal prayers he surely did, while he dwells on the description of major celebrations, as in the cases of Kykkos and Machairas (Grishin 1996, pp. 46‑49, pp. 85‑91). Barsky probably perceived his graffiti like his individual prayers, as an intimate and personal moment, with no place in a narration created for a wide audience. This aspect should be further investigated within the general practice of leaving graffiti on religious sites. On a wider scale, this might explain why there are very few mentions and references to the presence of graffiti especially to those created between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period.
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