Rescue excavationOccupied north after 1974

Kirni cemetery: Antiquities Department excavation (1988)

Name: Kirni cemetery: Antiquities Department excavation (1988)
Start: 1988
End: 1988

1988 · Kirni

Müge Hüseyin Şevketoğlu's 1988 excavation with an Antiquities Department team at the Kirni cemetery: a Chalcolithic shaft tomb and a triple-chambered Bronze Age tomb.

This fieldwork took place after the Turkish invasion of 1974, in the north of Cyprus, which Turkey has occupied since then. It was carried out without the permission of the Republic of Cyprus, the island's only recognised state, whose Department of Antiquities does not recognise permits issued in the occupied areas.

Map of Cyprus

Where the work took place

Ground above 200, 500, 1,000 m

Site

1Kirni (approx.)

Modern coastline (OpenStreetMap) and relief (Copernicus DEM).

The project

In 1988 Müge Hüseyin Şevketoğlu and a team from the Antiquities Department excavated at the cemetery of Kirni¹. Kirni lies in the area occupied by Turkey since 1974, so the work was done in occupied territory by a team of the Turkish Cypriot antiquities authority in the occupied north, without the permission of the Republic of Cyprus. They uncovered an empty shaft tomb, possibly looted, assigned to the Chalcolithic, and a triple-chambered tomb dated to the Early and Middle Bronze Ages¹. Summerer treats the work at Kirni-Hüsnü Kayasi/Krini in 1988 and 1992 as short-term salvage excavation following reported looting². Şevketoğlu describes the excavation in her 1998 thesis¹.