The church of St. George in the Kyrenia castle in North Cyprus: Bringing out the shape of architecture

Abstract

The contribution focuses on the digital documentation of St. George’s church, dating to the Early Byzantine Period, close to the Roman fortress of Kyrenia in the north of the island of Cyprus. In medieval times the Kyrenia castle became a focal point in the defense of Cyprus, being increasingly fortified, first in the Crusader period, then by the Venetians and the Ottomans, when it has incorporated within its defensive structures the church of St George of which today only the central dome covering is perceived from the outside. A digital survey campaign was carried out, integrating the morphological data coming from laser scanners with the texture of photogrammetry, so to be able to study the church and its architectural features; the textured 3D model was used both as a three-dimensional space fruition system through digital platforms, and as an informative base necessary for the graphic restitution of technical architectural drawings to build-up cognitive analyzes. The adoption of a three-dimensional model is useful to understand the distributional complexity of the architectural volumes that hide the Church of St George. It is beneficial for the visitor in the context of virtual museums, and appropriate to obtain traditional 2d drawings as a base to analyze the construction techniques for a stratigraphic-evolutionary study of the building that, together with a careful analysis of historical sources, allows to understand the development phases of the church in relationship with the enlargement of the castle's defensive structures.