Kandou: Department rescue tombs during Kouris dam levelling (1986)

Levelling for a new dam on the Kouris prompted rescue excavations at Kandou in 1986, reported by the Department of Antiquities from four localities: Ayia Napa, Athasia, Kokkinospilios and Anatolia¹. A newly found Cypro-Archaic tomb at Ayia Napa held local pottery, mostly Black-on-Red, and a pictorial jug showing two female figures facing one another beside a sacred tree¹. Six other tombs followed: tombs 7 and 11 at Ayia Napa, tomb 10 at Athasia and tomb 12 at Kokkinospilios among them. The report dates them to Cypro-Archaic I, with pottery mainly Black-on-Red, Bichrome Red and Black Slip, and illustrates a Black-on-Red II amphora from tomb 9, 56 cm high¹. Tomb 13, at Anatolia, is assigned to the Hellenistic and Roman periods; a silver pin from it, preserved length 9.8 cm, has a hollow globular head divided by incisions into pentagons, one showing a fish and another a stylised tree¹. The report says the material was held provisionally at the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia and was to go to the new storage rooms of the Limassol Museum¹.