HERIFORGE · Cyprus Hub Challenge · Draft for discussion · 22 October 2026
One Stone, Many Worlds
A WebXR experience built around a single object: the aniconic stone of the Paphian goddess. Visitors hold it while moving through the different worlds in which it has been named, represented, interpreted and venerated. Every world makes visible who is speaking, what evidence supports it, and what remains uncertain.
What changed after our conversation
- No reconstruction of the sanctuary. Nothing hypothetical is presented as fact.
- One object as protagonist. The project rests on the documented history of how the stone has been interpreted, not on the monumental remains whose study is still pending.
- Published sources only, always cited. No unpublished excavation data or images.
- “Layers” made concrete: each layer is a world around the visitor, voiced by one witness.
The horizon of worlds
The visitor picks up the stone and the experience begins. The stone becomes a dial through history: rotating it brings a different world around the visitor. Once inside a world, the visitor can look freely in every direction.
The foundation
The megalithic temenos. Was the stone already here?
DocumentedStone: unknown“Priest of the wanassa”
Kings of Paphos name themselves priests of the goddess.
DocumentedThe sanctuary on its coins
How Roman coins represented the sanctuary: the cone at its centre.
IconographyArchitecture: hypothesisThe temple imagined
Fischer von Erlach reconstructs the sanctuary as a classical temple.
ImaginedFound, misread, found again
In 1888 the excavators uncover the stone set upside down in a mosaic floor and take it for a tripod base. In 1913 Myres sees it again in a village courtyard wall, believing his predecessors had missed it by a few feet. Was it the sacred stone shown on Roman coins? (Maier 1997, pp. 134–135)
Finds: documentedIdentification: interpretedThe oil and the village
Mothers anointing the stone with oil, the rite that passed to the Panagia Galaktariotissa, and the memory of a mixed village until 1974.
Community memoryTo be co-designedHow it works
- The stone is the dial. Rotate it to move between historical worlds. Turning your head or body simply lets you look around the world you are in.
- The lens. Pointing the stone at a detail reveals the claim behind it: who says it, what evidence supports it, and its source.
- Certainty is visible. Each world’s visual language reflects the nature and certainty of the evidence, always accompanied by a written label.
- No install. It runs in any modern browser, but the experience is designed to come to life on a Meta Quest headset, where visitors can step into it in VR.
How certainty is shown
| Label | What it means | How it looks |
|---|---|---|
| Documented | Archaeological or written evidence, source shown | Solid, realistic |
| Interpreted | A scholar’s or a community’s reading, author named | Painted |
| Hypothesis | A possible arrangement, marked as such | Line drawing |
| Imagined | A representation with no basis in the evidence | Engraving style |
| Unknown / absent voice | No evidence, or a perspective not yet heard | Dark and silent |
Permissions
- No scanning or filming on site is needed.
- Our own schematic models, based on published plans and descriptions.
- Department of Antiquities already contacted. Photographing the stone in its museum would be requested in month 1, and is optional.
- Demonstration and user testing off-site; venue under discussion.
Your role, if you wish
- Agree the interpretive framework (month 1).
- Review the key historical claims and interpretive decisions through a simple web editor, with a clear record of the evidence and validation process.
- Validate the content before the prototype (month 4) and the final demonstration (month 6).
The role is intended to be advisory rather than operational, with research support included in the project budget. We would agree the exact level of involvement with you before submission.
Timeline
Before 27 October we only need your agreement in principle, by email; we write the application. If selected, the six months of work begin after evaluation, an online pitch and signature of the agreement.
Three questions for you
- Is the stone the right protagonist?
- Are these six worlds right? What would you change, add or remove?
- Do you think the Greek and Turkish Cypriot memory of Kouklia / Kukla belongs in this pilot? If so, who should we speak to in order to approach it responsibly?
Main published sources
- Iacovou, M. 2019. Palaepaphos: Unlocking the Landscape Context of the Sanctuary of the Cypriot Goddess. Open Archaeology 5.
- Maier, F.G. 1997. A hundred years after Hogarth: digging at Aphrodite’s sanctuary at Palaipaphos. Cahiers du Centre d’Études Chypriotes 27.
- Maier, F.G. 2004. Guide to Palaipaphos (Kouklia). Webb, J.M. 1999. Ritual Architecture, Iconography and Practice in the Late Cypriot Bronze Age.
- Gardner, E.A., Hogarth, D.G. et al. 1888. Excavations in Cyprus, 1887–88. JHS 9. Myres, J.L. 1940–45. The black stone on the site of the Paphian temple. BSA 41.
- Fischer von Erlach, J.B. 1721. Entwurff einer historischen Architectur. Roman coin types of the Paphian sanctuary.
- Papantoniou, G. 2012, 2013. Morris, C. & Papantoniou, G. 2014; 2025. PRIO Cyprus Displacement Centre, Kouklia.