Over the years man has used wood, which is an simple material to work with, in order to make artifacts, such as statues of deities and other figures.

Different craftsmen at various periods used wood to make a form of language to give expression to their view of the world around them, drawing their ideas from plants and animals.

Abstraction and symbolism produced decorative patterns which, together with geometric motifs and figures, have resulted in amazing work.

The basic representations of Cyprus woodcarving are birds (symbolizing love), wolves and lions (symbolizing strength), the Holy Cross (symbolizing the cycle of life), and angels (symbolizing guardians and protectors).

Cyprus woodcarving is separated into two categories, ecclesiastical and secular.

Ecclesiastic woodcarving flourished at the beginning of the 16th century, when the tall, carved wooden iconostasis was established in the Church of Cyprus. Examples of dynamic expressions in wood can be seen carved on iconostases, despotic thrones, pulpits, candelabras, church stools, doors, windows and other church furnishings.

Secular woodcarving is separated into two categories - urban and folkloric or rural. The category of urban woodcarving includes all sort of wooden furniture used by people in the cities, such as wardrobes, tables and chairs.

The main characteristic of folkloric or rural woodcarving is its effortless way of appearance and lack of proportions and plainness. Examples of this type of woodcarving are on chests, beds, chairs, shelves, wardrobes, mirrors and other.

The carvings on these items differ according to the owner’s social class and place of origin as regards their wealth of motifs, as well as the superiority of the raw materials used. The basic types of timber used are pine, walnut and cypress. Wood was also used for the creation of agricultural and household tools and equipment, such as ploughs, pestles and mortars, bread moulds, troughs, pack-sa ddles, cross-bars, looms, wooden shovels and others.

There are many techniques for the different motifs used in woodcarving:
a) In-relief or incised - the simplest form of expression, which is rendered with shallow colorless scrapes on a flat wooden surface,
b) Relief - motifs carved out and the background removed,
c) Sharp relief - the general shapes of objects rendered with limited portrayal of the original,
d) Bold or clear relief - general shapes rendered uniformly but smaller than life.

The tools and equipment that the woodcarver used are benches, angles, markers, saws, planes, chisels and wooden hammers.

With the manufacturing revolution many consumer goods entered into daily life. Mass manufacture has resulted in a market of a large number of uniform goods, so much so that anything which is a few years old, is now considered old fashioned. Today we live in a world where everything which is hand-made is costly to produce and unprofitable. Still, the Cyprus Handicraft Service, a department of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, has taken on the duty of reviving and maintaining this age-old tradition of woodcarving, which has been brought down through the centuries