Sinta Σίντα

Ammochostos District

View on the interactive map →

History

Sinta is a Turkish community in the occupied district of Ammochostos. It lies 22 kilometres west of Ammochostos, at an elevation of 30 metres, on the plain of the Mesaoria. Near the village lies a walled pre-Greek settlement, investigated by a Swedish archaeological mission. In the 1960 census it had 803 inhabitants, all of them Turks.

Name

In the Latin bull of 1196, the first written record of the village, the name is spelled “Xindas”.1 The 15th-century Cypriot chronicler Leontios Machairas writes “Sinta”, the 16th-century Cypriot chronicler Florio Bustron “Sinda”, and a royal document of 1468 “Sindes”.2 The official place-name index of Cyprus (the Gazetteer) has “Sinta, i”.3

Founding and first records

Sinta first appears in a written source on 13 December 1196, in the bull by which Pope Celestine III confirmed the possessions of the new Latin archbishopric of Nicosia. The village is one of the places of the Mesaoria from which the archbishopric received the tithe; the identification is made by the 19th-century French historian Louis de Mas Latrie, who published the bull.4

Archaeological sites

Near Sinta lies a settlement of the end of the pre-Greek period, ringed by a “Cyclopean” wall, that is, a wall of huge blocks of stone. It measured about 250 by 200 metres. It was investigated in 1947–48 by the Swedish mission of Arne Furumark, Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Uppsala, and it was there that the Cypriot archaeologist Vassos Karageorghis made his first excavation in Cyprus. The excavators distinguished three phases: the settlement was built around 1230 BC together with the wall, was destroyed by fire, was rebuilt, was destroyed again and was abandoned around 1150 BC.5

The first phase produced a large quantity of Mycenaean pottery, and in the second, pottery of Mycenaean type was by then being made on the spot in large quantities, which shows close ties with the Mycenaean Greek world. Karageorghis and the archaeologist Martha Demas took the view that it was founded by newcomers whose aim was the occupation of Enkomi. Broken sculpture was also found on the site, mainly of the Archaic and Classical ancient Greek periods, probably from a nearby sanctuary.6 As early as 1925 Luke Zenon Pierides had obtained a permit to excavate near Sinta.7

The finds of the Swedish excavation were divided between the University of Uppsala and the Cyprus Museum. According to the Swedish archaeologist Kristian Göransson, most of those that stayed in Cyprus, kept in the Famagusta Museum, are now lost.8

Greek medieval period (“Byzantium”)

Machairas records a tradition of three hundred Christians who took refuge in Cyprus when the Arabs conquered the Holy Land, lived as ascetics in various parts of the island and were honoured as saints at their tombs. Among them he names Saint Therapon at Sinta. Bustron says the same.9

Frankish and Venetian rule

In the war with the Genoese of 1373–74 Sinta became a battlefield. The Genoese were carrying the spoils of the sack of Nicosia to Ammochostos on camels and carts. The constable, that is, the commander-in-chief, of the kingdom, James, later King James I, lay in wait for them with 500 horsemen and attacked them when they reached Sinta; most of the Genoese were killed and the spoils were taken to Keryneia.10 In August 1425, when the Saracens, that is, the Mamluks of the sultan of Egypt, landed at Ammochostos, the prince of Galilee, brother of King Janus, led his army to Sinta and Trapeza to face them.11

In 1468 Sinta was a royal village. In a document of King James II on an exchange of serfs, a serf woman from Sinta is given by the king in exchange for a serf from the fief of a nobleman.12

Turkish rule

In the property survey carried out by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who owned property, Sinta is recorded as a mixed village of Christians and Muslims, with 35 property-holding households. The owners had cotton fields, a few gardens, threshing floors and much barren land. They had about 650 sheep, oxen for ploughing, cows, mules, horses, camels and beehives.13 In the village’s land the Gazetteer records the place-name Agios Savas.14

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the village’s land was sown almost entirely with cereals, and in 1973 the inhabitants kept 3,768 sheep and 1,311 goats.15

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, Sinta had 289 inhabitants in 1881, 304 in 1891, 362 in 1901, 491 in 1911 and 562 in 1921.16 In 1931 it had 623 inhabitants, 12 Christians and 611 Muslims, and in 1946 798, of whom 2 were Orthodox and 796 Muslims (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 803 inhabitants, all of them Turks, and in 1973 about 850 (estimate).

  1. L. de Mas Latrie, Histoire de l’île de Chypre sous le règne des princes de la maison de Lusignan, vol. 3 (1852–1861), p. 602.↩︎

  2. Leontios Machairas, Chronicle (Chronique de Chypre, trans. E. Miller – K. Sathas, Paris 1882), p. 22; Florio Bustron, Chronique de l’île de Chypre, ed. R. de Mas Latrie (1886), p. 34; L. de Mas Latrie, Histoire de l’île de Chypre sous le règne des princes de la maison de Lusignan, vol. 3 (1852–1861), p. 253.↩︎

  3. A Complete Gazetteer of Cyprus, vol. 1, p. 1109.↩︎

  4. L. de Mas Latrie, Histoire de l’île de Chypre sous le règne des princes de la maison de Lusignan, vol. 3 (1852–1861), pp. 601–602.↩︎

  5. Ancient Cyprus (ancientcyprus.com), register of excavations and surveys (accessed 1.11.2026).↩︎

  6. Ancient Cyprus (ancientcyprus.com), register of excavations and surveys (accessed 1.11.2026).↩︎

  7. Ancient Cyprus (ancientcyprus.com), register of excavations and surveys (accessed 1.11.2026).↩︎

  8. Ancient Cyprus (ancientcyprus.com), register of excavations and surveys (accessed 1.11.2026).↩︎

  9. Leontios Machairas, Chronicle (Chronique de Chypre, trans. E. Miller – K. Sathas, Paris 1882), pp. 21–22; Florio Bustron, Chronique de l’île de Chypre, ed. R. de Mas Latrie (1886), p. 34.↩︎

  10. Leontios Machairas, Chronicle (Chronique de Chypre, trans. E. Miller – K. Sathas, Paris 1882), pp. 258–259; Florio Bustron, Chronique de l’île de Chypre, ed. R. de Mas Latrie (1886), p. 316.↩︎

  11. Leontios Machairas, Chronicle (Chronique de Chypre, trans. E. Miller – K. Sathas, Paris 1882), p. 367; Florio Bustron, Chronique de l’île de Chypre, ed. R. de Mas Latrie (1886), p. 357.↩︎

  12. L. de Mas Latrie, Histoire de l’île de Chypre sous le règne des princes de la maison de Lusignan, vol. 3 (1852–1861), p. 253.↩︎

  13. The 1832/33 Ottoman Property Survey of Cyprus (Harokopio University, Sylvia Ioannou Foundation), «Sinta» (accessed 3.11.2026).↩︎

  14. A Complete Gazetteer of Cyprus, vol. 1, p. 67.↩︎

  15. Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia (Polignosi), «Σίντα».↩︎

  16. Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia (Polignosi), «Σίντα».↩︎

Sources (9)

Other Information

Postal Code

The Cyprus Post postal code for this community was and is 5567.