Ayia Irini: Department of Antiquities rescue of the Palaeokastro cemetery

The rock-cut tombs of the Palaeokastro cemetery at Ayia Irini, near the shore, were cleared by the Department of Antiquities in 1961, some of them already partly looted¹. Dikaios dates the tombs from Cypro-Archaic I-II to Cypro-Classical I, 700 to 400 BC, and lists White Painted IV and V, Bichrome V and Black on Red II (IV) pottery, East Greek wares, a Samarian bowl and a Cypriot jug with an engraved Phoenician inscription¹. Karageorghis describes one Cypro-Classical tomb, with a dromos, façade and steps leading to a rectangular chamber, plundered before the Department opened it, which held two small handleless White Painted VII flasks². The Cyprus Museum collected a group of pottery from looted tombs². Karageorghis reads the imported Ionian and Samarian pottery as evidence for connections with the Aegean and the East². In 1964 a Cypro-Archaic II tomb was recorded whose cover slab robbers had found but whose chamber was undisturbed; it held White Painted V, Bichrome V and Bichrome Red II vessels and a silver ring with a scarab³.