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The population of the city of Nicosia dropped everything and evacuated the war torn zone. Now 37 years later these photos have emerged of the city in its current state. See full gallery at the link.
In 1974, the Cypriot capital of Nicosia was divided in two by a U.N. Buffer Zone designed to quell violence between the island’s Greek and Turkish populations. Those living in the Zone quickly evacuated the area, creating an urban time capsule that’s been devoid of residents for nearly 40 years.
These photos were taken by Welsh Army photographer Sergeant Ian Forsyth, who is part of the UN peacekeeping force that overseas the 134-square-mile Zone. According to those who patrol this eerie area, it’s as if the past 37 years had never happened.
Archaeologists have unearthed a well in Cyprus that is believed to be between 9,000 and 10,500 years old, making one of the earth’s oldest water wells. Debris at the bottom of the well includes the skeleton of a woman.
Pavlos Flourentzos, the nation’s top antiquities official, said the 16-foot deep cylindrical shaft was found last month at a construction site in Kissonerga, a village near the Mediterranean island nation’s southwestern coast.
After the well dried up it apparently was used to dispose trash, and the items found in it included the poorly preserved skeleton of the young woman, animal bone fragments, worked flints, stone beads and pendants from the island’s early Neolithic period, Flourentzos said.
(image credit: Cyprus Antiquites Department/AP)
