MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND NATURAL HISTORY

Founded in 1979, this municipal museum (Güzelyurt Doğa ve Arkeoloji Müzesi) is housed in the former building of the Orthodox bishopric of Morphou. It houses the most prestigious archaeological artefacts discovered - illegally - in the Northern Zone since 1974. On the first floor, the natural history collection features specimens of animals from Cyprus: mammals, turtles, taxidermied fish and birds, snakes and lizards preserved in formalin. Of particular note are the copper shark, rarely seen in the Mediterranean, Bonelli's eagle (a few dozen pairs still live on the island) and two "mutant sheep", one with two heads, the other with two bodies and eight legs. Upstairs, the archaeology collection features objects divided into three periods, from the Neolithic to the Byzantine era.

Artemis Polymastos and Soli gold. The last room contains the centerpiece: a large statuette of Artemis of Ephesus from the ^2nd century BC, discovered by an Italian tourist in the Bay of Salamis (Famagusta region) in 1980. This representation of the Greek goddess of Hunting and Childbirth is a good example of the influence of Eastern cults that developed from Ephesus (now Turkey) and Egypt after the conquests of Alexander the Great. Here, the goddess is said to be polymastos, "with many breasts". In fact, the 36 ova on Artemis' bust are not breasts. They could be male attributes, more precisely bull's testicles (evocative of Megabyse, the eunuch high priest of the cult of Artemis in Ephesus), ostrich eggs (symbol of fertility) or fruit, with the rest of the body forming the trunk of a nourishing tree (another symbol of fertility). The goddess's legs are decorated with five rows of sphinxes and griffins, legendary creatures associated with various Greek and Oriental divinities. Since 2015, a room has been dedicated to the "Gold of Soli": some 50 precious objects, some in gold, from three ^4th-century BC tombs discovered in 2005 on the site of Soli, near Lefka. A gold-leaf diadem, made entirely of gold and of remarkable finesse, is adorned with 18 leaves and as many berries reproducing a branch of ivy. This type of funerary object is well known in Macedonia (northeastern Greece), but is unique to Cyprus. The diadem provides information about the city's trade with Greece.