16th International Symposium on Boat & Ship Archaeology

103 Zadar, Croatia | 26 September – 1 October 2021 Maria Ktori Department of History & Archaeology, University of Cyprus, Cyprus Paphos harbour and vernacular shipbuilding in Cyprus: proposing a new approach on examining its condition in the Middle Ages (12 th -16 th century) Paphos harbour was notoriously famous in medieval sources as a poor choice for a vessel to dock at. Ongoing silting, persisting for many centuries, earthquakes, and overall neglect to repair its installations, had rendered it useless to large vessels. The occasional accounts of such vessels using the harbour make one question the actual situation at the only large haven in western Cyprus. The author collected and reviewed written sources (12 th - 20 th century), and the available archaeolog- ical data. These were juxtaposed with late 19 th -early 20 th century photographs presenting traditional wooden vessels docked at the harbour, to investigate har- bour conditions, navigability issues and how the two may have affected seaborne trade. The present paper draws data from two ongoing projects, on settlement systems in Paphos region (12 th – 17 th century) and the Intangible Maritime Cultur- al Heritage Project respectively. The two distinct datasets provided a multidiscipli- nary basis to gauge the deterioration mentioned in sources, creating thus a new layer of information to understand cycles of development and decline of coastal settlements in western Cyprus.