Bamboula “A Tomb of the Early Classical Period” Benson (photos)

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This is not, indeed, remarkable in view of the Persian domination of the island at this time.³⁸ Nevertheless, the Swedish excavations at Marion, Vouni and Kition show that Persian hegemony by no means prevented the importation of pottery from Greece to Cyprus.³⁹ Particularly in view of the littoral location of Kourion with its navigable bay, one might have expected more ceramic evidence of commercial ties with Greece than the area has so far yielded. Of course, further excavation is needed to bring the picture into sharper focus.

Since there is no Classical settlement known to be anywhere in the immediate vicinity of Tomb 4, it may well have belonged to farmers. They were probably in moderate circumstances⁴⁰. The tomb is not isolated, for it adjoins another. It would be interesting to know if these really form part of a necropolis. In the immediate area are several subterranean cuttings in bedrock, now used by shepherds as sheep stalls, which look like badly destroyed tombs.

Tomb 4 belongs, as far as one can judge from its present condition, to the usual type of rock-cut chamber common in Cyprus since the Bronze Age⁴¹; it probably had a rock-cut shaft as dromos. Such adherence to native tradition, together with the modest nature of the gifts, would support the idea that this is the tomb of peasants. The foreign connections revealed in the pottery they used thus reflect their general environment rather than their immediate personalities. The general contemporaneity of burials and similarity of gifts further suggest that this was a family sepulcher. Particularly striking is the seated position of the Skeletons I-IV, which is doubtless to be interpreted as evidence of a multiple burial - in any case, of closely successive burials.

The report of Dr. J.L. Angel, of the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, indicates that these four - which were unrestorable - were adults, two perhaps