Log: Movements

Yesterday, we drove to Paphos to visit of the Tombs of the Kings, a major archaeological site and necropolis for the wealthy and powerful of the late BCs.

From the distance, we could see the white-washed city sprawling along the deep blue Mediterranean coast. Smaller than Limassol, but also hillier, I discovered Paphos as a place of contradictions.

Angular buildings from the 90s or early 2000s dot Paphos' long coastline. Here and there, there were some more contemporary structures mixed in. Elevators connect this lower part of the city, which we quickly discovered was all resorts and holiday rentals, with the old town that was constructed up on the hills.

We stopped by a taverna in the old town that was lively and full, but the neighboring streets still felt hollow and empty somehow. It was Saturday, but the old town felt like a ghost town. On some streets there were freshly painted shops, as if they were just about to open, while on other streets, the buildings seemed almost abandoned. The minaret of a grey-stoned mosque nearby rose into the sky.

Later, on the roads, we witnessed cars fighting for space around rotundas, and it seemed suddenly like that’s where everyone was (if not in a taverna): in their cars, going somewhere.

From a first glance, it would be impossible to guess that this all lies on top of monumental ancient ruins and porous limestone.

The stone cut niches we visited at the Tombs of the Kings were once filled with precious Hellenistic or Ptolemaic sarcophagi and treasure, but now house pigeons, native to this region, along with the recently arrived Asian hornets. The tombs house a damp and dusty darkness too, it’s an emptiness that feels dense. Uncanny in its weight, as if the dark voids that were carved into the earth were not empty at all.

What fascinates me the most about visiting archaeological sites is how the experience deconstructs a sense of normalcy; something that can also happen when learning about something completely new. I have experienced this first-hand in the classroom, while studying history, astronomy, literature. But at a site, this happens in a very physical way. Suddenly, I am standing at the edge of this hole in the ground, and I see doric columns below me, rising up as if holding up the rock and ground that I stand on.

To borrow a cliché, my perspective is shifted, literally. The usual rules of the game, on how to interact with a building or a space, are challenged. As much as the exposure to different narratives through books and film and conversations serves to challenge our preconceptions, there is something about movement—moving through a space and experiencing distances, heights, depths differently—that hits home differently. It’s a very visceral reminder of the vastness of pretty much everything: the planet, history, culture, microbiology, outer space, which is fun to encounter on a “small” island like Cyprus.

Ever since I took a history class on Salsa music and dance a few years back, I’ve been noticing how the concept of “embodiment” pops up from time to time. And if I think about it, I had already begun to think about "embodiment" after my undergraduate capstone course on Cervantes' short stories, which feature some interesting body-centered themes.

This has been significant to me because I grew up very "mind" centered. It's interesting to think very deliberatively about what it means to be "in" a body or to be a body, especially in thinking about how movement can be an act of knowledge-making or knowledge-sharing (something we usually associate exclusively with "the mind"). And what about storytelling? I also find it interesting how controlling movement can be a powerful tool in the hands of authorities, and how encouraging certain types of movements can also foster collective myths—thinking of Youth Groups in Nazi Germany or cults that have their members do physical labor or specific types of sport. And well, there is a reason that movement is also used to describe social, cultural, political changes like the labor or the feminist movement.

Moving around Cyprus has been very interesting (especially without owning a car). And this visit to Paphos has definitely been a highlight of my time here. It has given me a lot to think about.

We concluded our latest mini-trip, daylight fading fast, at a curving pebbly beach, which myths tell is the birthplace of Aphrodite.

- Andrea