Kalavasos village: Vasilikos Valley Project rescue of Bronze Age tombs

In 1978 and 1987 the Vasilikos Valley Project excavated Bronze Age tombs in Kalavasos village, thirteen in 1978 and twenty-three in 1987^1,2. The first rescue followed construction and bulldozing for shops east of the Panayia church. Michael Loulloupis of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus excavated CS. 2434, and the Project, directed that year by Ian A. Todd for Brandeis University, excavated the other twelve tombs¹. Bulldozing had nearly destroyed some of the thirteen and damaged others, one tomb lay partly under the church foundations, and most of the digging was done in ten days¹.

The report lists 465 objects from the 1978 tombs, among them pottery, metal weapons and ornaments, stone objects and thousands of stone or faience beads. Some tombs held several burials, as many as seven in the excavated part of CS. 2434. The report calls the pottery predominantly Middle Bronze Age, with a few Late Bronze Age White Slip sherds and Iron Age wheelmade vessels in CS. 2447¹.

In spring and summer 1987 the Project excavated sixteen tombs, numbered 57 to 72, near the church and the old school after building demolition and excavation work, and in December the Department and the Project jointly excavated seven more, numbered 73 to 79, north of the cinema². Karageorghis's annual report dates the first group provisionally to the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age and the second to the Middle Bronze Age. In the first group the grave goods were mainly pottery, including Red Polished Mottled, Red Polished III and Black Polished wares, with beads, metal ornaments and stone tools. From the second group the report illustrates a bronze awl with a decorated bone handle (T. 78.20) and a bronze dagger with a leather strap (T. 75.14)². Todd edited the volumes Vasilikos Valley Project 1: The Bronze Age Cemetery in Kalavasos Village (1986) and Vasilikos Valley Project 11: Kalavasos Village Tombs 52–79 (2007)^3,4.