Kazaphani-Ayios Andronikos: Department tomb rescues

In 1963 workers of the Electricity Authority, opening a trench for an electric-wire pole at the entrance to Kazaphani from Kyrenia, exposed Tomb 2 of the Ayios Andronikos cemetery¹. Kyriakos Nicolaou, then curator of the Cyprus Museum, supervised its excavation, assisted by Yiannis Cleanthous, Andreas Georghiou and Alexandros Vikis^1,2. The tomb at Kazaphani-Ayios Andronikos had two chambers, A and B, opening from a shared dromos; B was the larger¹. Chamber A was heavily disturbed. Chamber B was also probably robbed, but less so, and most of its pottery lay intact in situ¹.

Karageorghis's 1964 chronicle describes chamber B as containing more than 500 objects, and lists White Painted VI, White Slip I and II, Base-Ring I vessels and bull rhyta, a Rude Style bell krater, a few Mycenaean stirrup jars, Syrian bichrome vessels and a pottery boat model 45 cm long, with perforations along its edge and a socket for a mast². He dates the material from the end of Late Cypriot I to the end of Late Cypriot II, while the 1989 publication calls the tomb Middle/Late Cypriot and counts over 1,000 grave gifts in the two chambers together^1,2. The 1964 chronicle reports the finds collected by the Kyrenia Regional Museum; the 1989 introduction says they had been transferred to the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia^1,2. Knappett and colleagues report a high concentration of Red Lustrous Wheelmade ware at Kazaphani, mainly from Tomb 2A and B, and studied ten sherds from lentoid flasks in chamber B: nine were canonical ware and one a local imitation³.

In 1971 the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus excavated two more tombs in the cemetery, identified in 1989 as T.5 (CS 1828) and T.6 (CS 1829), with 395 and 346 grave goods^1,4. They had been opened in antiquity but still held hundreds of objects: Mycenaean small vases, two Late Minoan stirrup jars, a Rude Style krater, Red Lustrous ware, a Base-Ring II group of a human figure standing beside a bull, and a folded bronze belt⁴. Karageorghis dates them from the beginning of Late Cypriot I to the very end of Late Cypriot II⁴. Ino Nicolaou published Tomb 2A and B in 1989, with a plan and catalogue of the chamber layout and grave goods¹.