Enkomi: Rupert Gunnis's experimental search for the Cyprus Museum

Rupert Forbes Gunnis, then an Inspector of Antiquities in Cyprus, led a short campaign at Ayios Iakovos, Enkomi, on behalf of the Cyprus Museum^1,2. The Swedish Cyprus Expedition later called it a small experimental search for funerary deposits². Tatton-Brown describes it as unsuccessful in finding tombs, although it produced a bronze hoard¹. Gunnis's diary, which records the discovery on 16 December 1927, lists the hoard, found beneath the foundations of a Byzantine church, as two spades, a bowl, lamps, arrowheads and ingots^1,2. Merrillees writes that the digging was, it would seem, not very scientific, and that Gunnis published no report on it². He notes that no ingots in the Cyprus Museum have been identified as belonging to the Gunnis Hoard, and raises the possibility that ingots from the sounding passed into George Basil Palma's possession².