1951

Continued from scan 31

… in the middle of the area; part of a large building believed to be a palace; and a small section of a theater on the eastern limits of the bluff overlooking the wide fertile plain below. Before the clearing of these buildings could be made possible it was necessary to expropriate the land. Pending this the excavators moved to two other sites. George McFadden began clearing before the war the Sanctuary of Apollo about a mile and a half west of the city walls, and Pete Daniel cleared a large area of the Bronze Age settlement 1600-1000 B.C just west of the river Kouris some two miles east of the bluff.

The Bronze Age site disclosed the remains of an extensive fortified city of the Mycenaean period when Curium was part of a great empire which had its capital at Mycenae in Greece. Excavations at Curium added much to our knowledge of the rise and fall of this empire and of the Greek colonization of Cyprus at the close of this brilliant and fascinating epoque. Among the finds from the Bronze Age site were inscriptions in the Cypro-Minoan script, doubling the number known, and thus bringing nearer the decipherment of the writing used in the Minoan civilization of Crete from whence they were devived. Other finds included fine pottery imported from Greece, seal stones from the Levant, and ivory from Egypt.

After the fall of Mycenae in the 12th century B.C. refugees came to Cyprus. Some settled, Daniel thought, in this Bronze Age settlement near Curium; others established themselves on the bluff of Curium where they founded a new city. This remained the center of Curium until its final destruction, possibly in the 7th century A.D.