Editorial May 23, 1988 Issue

A faith that can't be crushed

William E. Moody

Cyprus. A.D. 365. On this island in the Mediterranean, an earthquake strikes the Roman city of Kourion. The city is destroyed.

That event occurred a long time ago, and although Kourion virtually disappeared from the record of civilization after its destruction, now, more than sixteen centuries later, the ancient city has again been discovered. And the story of its people—their day-to-day lives, their struggles, and their faith—is being retold as archaeologists carefully uncover the city's ruins.

The artifacts retrieved amount to a "snapshot" of everyday life in the late Roman Empire. These items include a crushed bronze pot, found sitting in an open oven; a painted pottery amphora on a mudbrick work bench; and a finely fashioned bronze duck oil lamp lying in a doorway. There are many large fresco fragments with graffiti scratched on them in ancient Greek. The first one deciphered reads, "Oh Jesus ... of Christ."^{Archaeology, January /February 1988, p. 19 .}