After the Ottoman-Venetian war in the late 1500s, the Ottoman Empire gave the island of Cyprus (located off the coast of Turkey) to Britain, to control as one of its territories. As the island progressed, it became split between it's two major inhabitants, the Greeks and the Turks. In order to avoid a possible uprising and rebellion against the British forces, the British government of Cyprus would often pit one group against each other, thus creating strife between the two inhabitants, and too much division to ever revolt and gain independence against the British superpower. This succeeded alarmingly well, and the Turkish and Greek residents on Cyprus, began to wage war against each other, drawing in the help of their homeland governments. This lead to a Turkish invasion of Cyprus in the late 1960's and 1970's. The Turks desired to create a barrier on the island between the Greek inhabitants and their own Turkish people, out of nationalism and out of their differing opinions in religion. Through two invasions by the Turkish Army, they were able to create a boarder between the North and South of Cyprus, the Turkish people moving to the North, and the Greeks to the South.
The invasions and subsequent wars in Cyprus created much unrest and turmoil throughout the country, thus allowing looters to rampage through the country, collecting valuable pieces of art. Many of the most famous, and most valuable of these art pieces were from Greek Orthodox Churches. These Churches had been built in the time of the Byzantine Empire, and thus contained very ancient and valuable frescos and mosaics dating back into the 6th, 12th and 15th centuries. The pieces that were rendered in the 6th century, were very important because they had survived an edict made by one of the Byzantine Emperors, stating that all renderings of religious figures should be wiped out and destroyed.
examples of some mosaics stolen from Cyprus Churches:
