World Heritage of Cyprus: History, Myth, Religion

5 March 2026.

Strange times to feel proud of anything. Wars, instability, economic pressure everywhere you look. From Cyprus we are geographically close to conflict, yet our daily lives continue. And I think it’s important to recognise that difference. To feel like a victim from a place of relative safety can, in some way, diminish the reality of those whose lives have truly been torn apart.

Still, life goes on. Work goes on. And meaning often comes from continuing to build, even in uncertain times.

Last year, in 2025, I worked closely with UNESCO and the Department of Antiquities on the publication World Heritage of Cyprus: History, Myth, Religion, produced by the Cyprus National Commission for UNESCO.

After more than a decade working in this field, projects like this matter even more to me for a simple reason: they become something tangible, a physical book you can hold, a record of collaboration, trust, access, and shared effort. It allows me to pause and see what months or years of movement, planning, and quiet problem-solving actually became.

A record of collaboration, trust, access, and shared effort.

The work brought me back to the archaeological sites of Paphos Archaeological Park, places I’ve photographed for years. This time, with a new Mavic drone, I was finally able to capture perspectives that were simply out of reach before. It was a small technological shift, but creatively it opened new space. Revisiting Choirokoitia is always a priviladge, standing again in one of the island’s oldest places of history.

Another highlight was spending more time inside the painted churches of Troodos, part of the UNESCO World Heritage inscription. Carefully documenting artwork that has survived for hundreds of years forces me to slow down. I really started to think about continuity, fragility and what it actually takes for something to endure.

And that’s what stays with me.

I think that resilience isn’t dramatic it’s quiet. Not sure if I can explain what I feel but I think of it like this, take an ancient wall, it does not survive because of one heroic act, but because someone keeps placing fallen stones back where they belong. Small, repeated care. That’s it.

Maybe it sounds naive, but I believe there’s something to learn from these sites. They hold centuries of tolerance, adaptation, and persistence. In unstable times, continuing to create, document, and care, in whatever small way we can, feels like its own form of resistance.