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Stripped, forced into a freezing lake and eventually stoned to death by pagans, the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste steadfastly refuse to recant their Christianity in this magnificent 12th-century wall painting from Asinou’s church of Panagia Phorviotissa (see photo of church of Panagia Phorviotissa in the sidebar to this article), in the southern Republic of Cyprus. The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste is just one of many dazzling paintings housed within simple, barn-like Byzantine churches in Cyprus’s Troodos Mountains. Ten of these churches have been deemed international cultural treasures and added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage sites.