Afanteia is a mixed community in the occupied part of the Ammochostos district. It lies 33 kilometres west of Ammochostos, at an elevation of 70 metres, in the geographical region of the Mesaoria, on the old Lefkosia–Ammochostos road and near the boundary of the Lefkosia district.¹ In the 1960 census it had 811 inhabitants, of whom 498 were Greeks and 303 Turks.

Name

The inhabitants and the official gazetteer of Cyprus call the village “Afaneia”.² In the Latin bull of 1196, the first written mention of the village, the name is written “Affendia” (in one of the two copies “Ascendia”), and in a Venetian list of the late 15th century “Casal Afandia”.³

Founding and first records

Afanteia first appears in a written source on 13 December 1196, together with neighbouring Ornithi, in the bull by which Pope Celestine III confirmed the possessions of the new Latin archbishopric of Lefkosia. It was published by the 19th-century French historian Louis de Mas Latrie.⁴

Ornithi, which is mentioned in the bull before Afanteia, lay a little further west, and the Gazetteer records it as a settlement within the land of Afanteia. The British architect George Jeffery, who recorded the monuments of Cyprus in 1918, noted that the original Christian settlement of Ornithi had disappeared entirely and that only its small church survived, with its key kept at Afanteia. He thought it likely that Afanteia had taken the place of medieval Ornithi.⁵ In the 1960 census Ornithi was recorded separately, with 18 Turkish inhabitants.

Frankish and Venetian rule

Afanteia was not given as a fief to a nobleman. King Amalric of Lusignan gave it, together with Ornithi, to the Latin archbishopric of Lefkosia, and the two villages formed its first endowment. The bull of 1196 explicitly calls them “two villages given and granted to this church by the most illustrious King of Cyprus, Amalric”.⁶

Afanteia remained with the Latin archbishopric until the end of Venetian rule. In the Venetian memorandum on the revenues of the clergy, of the late 15th century, “Casal Afandia” is the first of the nine villages of the Latin archbishop, and Ornithi is again among them.⁷

Turkish rule

In the property survey made by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who held property, Afanteia is recorded as a mixed village, with 54 households holding property. The main crop was cotton: the cotton fields were the most valuable land of the village, and some of them were abundantly irrigated. There were also fields, a garden with a water-wheel, threshing floors and much barren land, but no trees. The inhabitants had about 830 sheep and goats, pairs of oxen, cows and mules.⁸

Churches and monasteries

The old parish church of the village is dedicated to Saint Artemios and already existed in 1918, when Jeffery describes it as a large, new church.⁹ Next to it stands the newer parish church of Agios Dimitrios, and behind Agios Artemios the Greek Orthodox cemetery.¹⁰

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the land of Afanteia was almost entirely cultivated but unirrigated, and before 1974 the inhabitants grew mainly wheat, barley and a little oats. The dry land also turned them early to stock-breeding: in 1973 the village had 2,106 sheep, 989 goats and 80 cows. Its position between Lefkosia and Ammochostos helped, according to the same encyclopaedia, and many inhabitants worked in Lefkosia.¹¹ In 1929 the Afaneia Co-operative Credit Society was founded, and in 1956 the Afaneia Co-operative Grocery.

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village had 355 inhabitants in 1881, 377 in 1891, 442 in 1901, 456 in 1911 and 520 in 1921, of whom 301 were Christians and 219 Muslims.¹² In 1931 Afanteia had 495 inhabitants, 303 Christians and 192 Muslims, and in 1946 681, of whom 383 were Orthodox and 298 Muslims (the 1931 and 1946 censuses recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 811 inhabitants, of whom 498 were Greeks and 303 Turks, and in 1973 588 Greeks and about 300 Turks (estimate). In the school year 1973–74 the Greek elementary school had 106 pupils and four teachers.

National struggles

In the Enosis plebiscite of 1950, 232 inhabitants signed, practically all the adult Greek inhabitants. The Register of EOKA Fighters lists 38 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or supported the Struggle.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Afanteia was captured by the Turkish army and its Greek population was subjected to ethnic cleansing. Since then the Turkish occupation forces and the illegal occupation authority prevent the return of its inhabitants.

15 inhabitants of Afanteia, 12 civilians and 3 soldiers, were recorded as missing. Eight of them, seven civilians and one soldier, were lost in the village itself. Of the other 7, four civilians were lost in neighbouring Assia and its area and one in Lefkosia, and the two soldiers in the Mandres area of Kaimakli and in the area of Lapithos. The remains of 11 have been located and identified; the other 4 are still missing. One more civilian from Afanteia was killed in 1974 at a place that is not known.

The 2009 list records both churches of the village as looted and desecrated, and Agios Dimitrios also as seriously damaged. All the crosses and almost all the furnishings were removed from Agios Artemios, and in the cemetery the crosses of the graves are scattered and the larger tombs are damaged.¹³