Idalion: the sanctuary of Aphrodite dug for Charles Watkins

A small sanctuary north of ancient Idalion, near a bend of the Gialias river, yielded figured offerings in terracotta and limestone when Max Ohnefalsch-Richter excavated it for Charles F. Watkins, whom Hermary identifies as director of the Ottoman Bank at Larnaca. Hermary gives the work as February–April 1885, although the legend of the ground plan is reported as dating it to 1886. Ohnefalsch-Richter names Mr Sotherland, Royal English Engineer and Surveyor to the Government, as having assisted.^1,2,3

Hermary suggests use from the Archaic period, perhaps not before the late seventh century BC, to the Hellenistic period, perhaps the third century BC. The terracotta votive figurines and statues were mostly female in his examination, and the Cyprus Museum catalogue describes its listed statues as all female and of small size. On the north side of the altar in room S were six iron implements, which Ohnefalsch-Richter interpreted as fire-hooks and Hermary suggests may be two-pronged hoes (dikellai).^1,2 The sanctuary produced no votive inscription, so its identification as a sanctuary of Aphrodite rests, as Fourrier notes, on the character of the offerings.^1,4

The finds were divided. The Cyprus Museum received about 200 objects (catalogue nos. 5601–5799a), Berlin has 479 registered inventory numbers (Misc.-Inv. 8015, 1–479), and 157 objects were resold to the Badisches Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe.¹ Hermary reports that the Karlsruhe group was the only division then entirely published, and that much of the Berlin and Nicosia material remained unpublished.¹