Ayios Iakovos: the Swedish Cyprus Expedition, 1929

Tomb 8 in the rock-cut cemetery at Ayios Iakovos-Melia held 62 burials in three periods, which the report dates from the end of Middle Cypriot III to Late Cypriot II.¹ The Swedish Cyprus Expedition worked at Melia from the end of June 1929 for seven weeks, and a second hill at Dhima was excavated in September.¹ Einar Gjerstad was expedition chief¹; Erik Sjöqvist was associated with the Melia necropolis¹; Alfred Westholm led the excavation at Dhima.¹

At Melia two tombs had been opened and sacked before the expedition's work, and the expedition opened fourteen new tombs, numbered 1 to 14. Tombs 2, 3, 5, 9 and 11 were not completely excavated.¹ The expedition sought the settlement associated with the cemetery and planned stratigraphical tests to corroborate the tomb chronology.¹ In Tomb 8 the report distinguishes an earliest group at the end of Middle Cypriot III, mass burials at the beginning of Late Cypriot I, and a final group of Late Cypriot II.¹

The trial excavation at Dhima followed reports of pottery brought up by a farmer's wooden plough. The stratified settlement the excavators hoped for was not found on the first hill, and the results were presented as a Bronze Age sanctuary.¹ It had a roughly circular floor, two stone podia, a dividing wall and a terracotta basin, and a rock-cut pit below the floor held ash and pottery, which the report interprets as a bothros. The excavators dated the pit to Middle Cypriot III and the principal use to the 14th century BC, early in Late Cypriot II, and proposed a gap in use during Late Cypriot I.¹ On the second hill Westholm excavated a rectangular house-chapel with two cement floors and a small podium the excavators took for an altar; the report dates the floors to the transition between Cypro-Geometric I and II and to Cypro-Geometric III.¹ The results were published in the expedition's final report, volume III.¹