ExcavationDepartment of Antiquities

Kition: the Department of Antiquities Excavations at Kathari and Chrysopolitissa

Name: Kition: the Department of Antiquities Excavations at Kathari and Chrysopolitissa
Start: 1959
End: 1983

1959–1983 · Kition

Also known as Kition-Kathari; Fouilles de Kition (Service des Antiquités); Karageorghis's excavations at Kition

The Department of Antiquities' excavations at Kition under Vassos Karageorghis from 1959: a Late Cypriot town wall, copper-smelting workshops, Late Bronze Age temples and a Phoenician temple.

Map of Cyprus

Where the work took place

Ground above 200, 500, 1,000 m

Site

1Kition

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

The project

At Kathari, on the northern edge of ancient Kition, the Department of Antiquities found a Late Cypriot town wall with rectangular bastions¹, three copper-smelting workshops beside it², a Phoenician temple with four rows of seven columns³, and a group of Late Bronze Age temples⁴. Vassos Karageorghis was in charge for the Department from 1959⁵.

Chrysopolitissa, 1959 to 1963

The 1959 dig was a rescue. Chance finds in foundation trenches on a building plot at Pefkakia, in the Chrysopolitissa quarter of Larnaca, led the Department to excavate⁵. A 1st-century AD mosaic, 4 m across, with black geometric and floral motifs on a white ground, probably from a private bath room, had first drawn attention to the plot. It was lifted and taken to the Larnaca regional museum⁵. The plot also gave two chamber tombs, one reused in the 12th century and one intact with five alabaster vases, and a well. Archbishop Makarios III made a general contribution to the excavation⁵.

Karageorghis took the tombs to show a flourishing Late Bronze Age city at Kition from at least the 14th century. He argued that Kition had not been founded by the Phoenicians and that Myres's view of a move from Hala Sultan Tekke to Kition needed revising⁵.

In 1962 the Department dug the plot next to the 1959 one and found Late Cypriot II tombs, architectural remains from the 13th century BC to the Byzantine period, an Early Cypriot III tomb, Graeco-Roman bath remains and a conical faience rhyton⁶. A well held Myc. IIIC:2 pottery, dumped after the destruction of the town by the Sea Peoples. The thick mud-brick destruction layer suggested to Karageorghis a natural catastrophe such as an earthquake; the buildings were rebuilt⁶.

Area I lay inside an inhabited quarter, and a large open area was sought. A surface survey led to Kathari, where four large projecting stones were suspected to be part of the city wall; that became Area II⁷. In 1963 a summer campaign of two and a half months covered the zone of the 1962 excavations, and an autumn campaign opened a site north of Chrysopolitissa, where the walls of the Late Cypriot town were found^7,8.

The wall and the workshops

In 1964 the northern defence wall at Kathari was cleared over about 60 m: a mud-brick wall with rectangular towers about 24 m apart (Late Cypriot I-II), with a Late Cypriot III cyclopean wall over its collapse⁹. In 1965 the whole campaign cleared the rectangular bastion found the year before (18.30 m wide, 5 m deep) and proved it Late Cypriot II. A street outside the wall was covered by a Myc. IIIC:2 ash layer. Water 50 cm below the outer street suggested to the excavator a shallow lagoon¹. The second bastion, 23 m to the west, was cleared in 1966 and confirmed the stratigraphy and chronology of the wall¹⁰.

From 1967 work was confined to Area II¹¹. The three copper-smelting workshops were discovered that year. In 1968, over four months, all three were explored. Room 12 was cleared completely, with four floors, hearths, ore-crushing slabs (re-used stone anchors) and a well filled with bone ash; clay sling bullets lay on the Floor II level under earthquake debris². In 1976 a building plot in Sector I, where the first digs had taken place in 1962, revealed a three-room complex of metallurgical workshops of Late Cypriot II date with furnaces and wells, and a bath room beside it¹².

The temples

The large Phoenician temple was partly uncovered in the last months of 1967 and its excavation completed in 1968². Two campaigns in 1969 aimed at clearing it completely and established the plan of the first temple, with four rows of seven columns and a gypsum offering-table slab at the adyton entrance³. Karageorghis proposed that this first temple was destroyed by fire around 800 BC, on the evidence of Samaria ware and Cypriot Geometric II and III wares³. In 1976 he assumed it was built round the middle of the ninth century BC⁷.

Trial digging in 1970 revealed three Late Bronze Age temples near the north city wall⁴. Work in 1971 between Temples 1 and 2 defined temenos B, 19.50 m by 12.70 m in its earliest reported phase, Karageorghis dated a destruction there to about 1075 and the rebuilding to about 1050¹³. In 1974 a first campaign in May and June fully excavated Temple 4. The second began a week after the end of hostilities, with a group of Danish, American and Australian students, among them Ellen Herscher and Jenny Webb^7,14. On Temple 4's earliest floor were a ring with a bull intaglio and a large ivory handle in the holy of holies; three bronze objects in the north-east corner of the court were thought to be a foundation deposit. Karageorghis dated its building to the end of the 12th century BC; he placed its abandonment, with the other temples of the same place, after the expulsion of the Phoenician dynasty of Kition by Ptolemy I in 312 BC¹⁴.

The summer of 1975 identified Temple 5 south of Temple 4, a Late Bronze Age temple built at the same time as Temples 1 and 4 and reused in the Phoenician period¹⁵. Temples 4 and 5 lie on either side of the east city gate¹⁶. The adyton of Temple 1 was a long corridor in three compartments, and storerooms and workshops lay west of it¹⁶. The south wall of Temple 5 measured about 31 m¹⁷.

The 1978 season was expected to be the last in Area II; south of Temple 1 it reached floor IIIA (about 1200 BC) and a street¹⁸. In 1979 the long thin wall south of Temple 1, first tied to a hypothetical Temple 6, was recognised as the enclosure wall of a sacred garden, whose planting pits in the temple court had been read as such in 1972^19,20. By 1984 Hermary described the Kathari excavations as finished and credited them with new light on Phoenician colonisation, through monumental sanctuaries from the end of the 9th century BC²¹. Karageorghis published the results as Excavations at Kition I to V (Nicosia, 1974–1985)²².

Directors and team

Directed by

Vassos Karageorghis1959–1983

Team

Archbishop Makarios III
Danish, American and Australian students
Emilia Masson1972

Institutions

Department of AntiquitiesSponsor
Archbishop Makarios III (contribution, 1959)Funder

Seasons

19 seasons

1959
Department excavation led by the author after chance finds at a building plot: first Late Bronze Age Kition. A large 14th-13th c. chamber tomb (Mycenaean chariot amphora, gold band, ivory, faience; 12th-c. burials) and an intact 13th-c. chamber with five alabaster vases, ivory and a dagger; a well; 1st-c. BC vault; Roman mosaic lifted to Larnaca Museum. LC chamber tomb with Cypriot and Mycenaean wares (14th-13th c.) later replaced by a shaft grave; a second chamber tomb with 12th-c. pottery and five engraved alabaster vases; Myc IIIC:2 pottery from a well; 4th-c. BC graveyard reuse; Roman mosaic floor.
Directed by V. Karageorghis[1], [2]
1962
New Department excavation next to the 1959 plot: an Early Cypriot III tomb with Red and Black Polished ware, a partly looted LC II tomb with Mycenaean kraters, kylikes and ivories, LC IIIA houses, a well with Myc IIIC:2 'Granary Style' then early Iron Age Geometric layers, signs of a destruction (perhaps earthquake), Graeco-Roman baths, and a faience rhyton with painted bulls and human figures.
Directed by V. Karageorghis[12]
1963summer and autumn 1963
Two campaigns: summer (2.5 months) at Chrysopolitissa, autumn at Kathari 225 m north. Tombs 6, 8 (MC I Red/Black Polished), 4+5 (LC II Mycenaean, albaster, ivory), and the rich LC IIC Tomb 9 with gold, seals and ivory; copper-working floors in LC II-III houses; LC IIIA ashlar buildings; and the cyclopean city wall (2.50 m thick) with EC III tombs beneath.
Directed by V. Karageorghis[13]
1964
About 60 m of the enceinte uncovered: mud-brick wall with square stone towers about 24 m apart, built in LC I-II, a cyclopean wall of LC III over its collapse, a double street with a Myc. IIIC:1b ash layer, and a later Classical rebuild. The Department plans to buy plots along the wall.
Directed by V. Karageorghis[15]
1965
Rectangular bastion (18.30 x 5 m) of the Late Cypriot II mud-brick wall cleared; Late Cypriot III cyclopean wall and a street with cart ruts and Myc. IIIC:1 ash layer; early Geometric houses outside; water table suggests a lagoon at Kathari. Expropriated adjacent plot dug: medieval ruins above a Hellenistic bath-house of two heated circular rotundas with cement basins, the first balaneion of this type found in Cyprus; Late Bronze Age town lies deep below.
Directed by V. Karageorghis[16]
1966
Second bastion of the Late Bronze Age cyclopean town wall fully cleared (13.5 m wide); wall traced 100 m west; houses and three workshop halls with copper slag inside; destruction level with Myc. IIIC:2, reoccupied in Geometric I; a late Archaic/Classical building (perhaps a temple) with a bothros full of figurines, limestone sculpture and glass-paste Egyptian amulets; second half of the Chrysopolitissa plot cleared.
Directed by V. Karageorghis[17]
1967
Floor III bays against the town wall: five large rooms (12–16) with copper slag, shallow casting pits and work benches, the first firm evidence of Late Cypriot III copper smelting; Floor II Proto-White Painted burnt level; Floor I Geometric I; a large ashlar building (21 x 30+ m), perhaps a Phoenician temple, with Samaria ware c. 800 BC and Classical Attic pottery; pits with scarabs, terracottas, ivory.
Directed by V. Karageorghis[18]
1968four months, 1968
Four-month campaign: all three LC copper-smelting workshops explored (Room 12 with four floors, hearths, ore benches, bone ash pit; Room 16 with bread oven), an EBA tomb (Area II T. 6) cut by a well, and the large Phoenician temple (c. 800 BC, four periods to end of 4th c.) largely cleared, with Phoenician inscription LB' and a sealed bothros of 11th-century ritual material.
Directed by V. Karageorghis[20]
1969summer and autumn 1969
Two campaigns completed the plan of the Phoenician temple: first-period hall with four rows of seven columns destroyed by fire c. 800 BC, adyton pilasters (Jachin and Boaz idea), offering table, later periods ending 312 BC with copper-smelting; Red Slip bowl with Phoenician inscription, bull-skull masks, faience figurine, Attic krater fragments, deposit east of the wall.
Directed by V. Karageorghis[21]
1970about four months in 1970
About four months: Phoenician temple interior cleared with a foundation deposit of miniature Black-on-Red and Grey and Black Polished vessels; the bothros east of it with Red Slip jugs incl. a syllabic inscription; sondages revealing Late Cypriot Temple 1, Temple 2 and Temple 3 and an adjacent copper-working quarter with bone-ash pits and ovens.
Directed by V. Karageorghis[23]
1971about three months (dates not given)
Three-month season between Temples 1 and 2: Temenos B defined (19.5 x 12.7 m) with a 23.5 m ashlar east facade and propylaeum; LBA periods I-III (destruction c. 1075, rebuilding c. 1050); then the Phoenician temple of Astarte with bothroi, altar and a small copper workshop; Bes amulet, Cycladic imports.
[25]
1972
Temple court cleared to bedrock, revealing rows of pits (a sacred garden) and a larger basin; temenos A cleared with a second ash altar and floor III with Mycenaean IIIC:1 pottery; two symmetrical tree pits at the propylon; Phoenician bothroi with Samaria ware, a Melqart inscription on a bowl and ivory-working waste; cornes de consecration re-erected.
[27]
1973
1973 limited to sacred buildings: Temenos A courtyard with Room 35 under floor III and copper slag in the fill; Temple 2 pillar porticoes of floors III-IV; the city wall followed to 98 m, reusing stone anchors; and a new public square with a Temenos and Rooms 36–38, altars A-C and bothroi 14–16.
Directed by V. Karageorghis[28]
1974May-June and August-September 1974
Temple 4 of the sacred quarter fully excavated (built 12th c. BCE, used to Cypro-Classical): foundation deposit of bronze tools and a huge nail, five successive altars, ivory handle, bull intaglio ring, Egyptianising capital, Attic red-figure sherds. Second campaign clarified altar sequence, Hellenistic-Roman rooms, a possible fifth temple with votive mask, and a bothros. All Department excavations of the year were in the south and west and were completed. The exploration section also carried out rescue digs on many other sites.
Directed by V. Karageorghis[29]
1975summer 1975
Summer campaign S of Temple 4 cleared Temple 5 (late 13th c. BC, with Temples 1 and 4; reused in Phoenician period): courtyard with pillar rows, altar, floors III A to I, stone anchors, bucrania, Cypro-Minoan inscribed clay ball and jar, large bothros with ritual finds (bearded masks, naiskoi, ivory plaque). Rest of Temple 4 cleared: ivory hoard (Bes plaque, lion plaque, inscribed pipe), cupmarked blocks; Cypro-Geometric Tombs 10 and 11 outside W wall.
Directed by V. Karageorghis[30]
1976
Long season in three sectors. Sector I: Late Cypriot II metallurgical workshops (three-room building with furnaces, wells, copper slag), a bath room, and later houses; a Mycenaean IIIC:1 bell krater with bears. Sector II: Temple 5 fully cleared (22 x 11 m, porticoes, altar-hearth, piers), Classical private house, town wall turning south with a gate flanked by two towers. Sector IV: massive rectangular building probably a harbour tower in the fortification line, with foundations back to LC III.
Directed by V. Karageorghis[8]
1977
Temple 5 plan clarified (bounded east by Tower B at the East Gate, 31 m south wall); Temple 4/5 pair beside the gate; temenos B altar sequence; adyton of Temple 1 a long corridor in three compartments; storerooms and workshops west of Temple 1 with iron dagger, bone styli, ivory comb, Cypro-Minoan signs.
Directed by V. Karageorghis[31]
1978
South of Temple 1 a Late Cypriot street with stairs to the side entrance (floor IIIA, c. 1200 BCE) and a rubble wall possibly of a LC II sanctuary (Temple 6?); west of Temple 1 the storerooms for bone ash and workshops (loom weights, spindle whorls, bone styli) run by the temple administration; investigation of the north 'tower' at the city wall.
Directed by V. Karageorghis[32]
1979
Dig to bedrock S and W of Temple 1: 22.5 m enclosure wall of the sacred garden (floor IV), small pits, industrial building complex rooms 127 A-C with metallurgical traces, floor IIIA courtyard and street, ivory bird pyxis, steatite griffin scarab, stepped S side entrance of Temple 1.
Directed by V. Karageorghis[33]

What was found

Periods

Features and finds

chamber tomb 1; chamber tomb 2 (intact); well; mud-brick remains; Roman mosaic (4 m); faience conical rhyton, 28 cm; LC IIIA houses; well with Granary Style; Graeco-Roman baths; cyclopean city wall at Kathari; copper-working floors; ashlar buildings late 12th century; city wall; towers; cyclopean wall; street; bastion; Hellenistic baths; Bastion 2; three halls; bothros; Chrysopolitissa baths area; town wall towers; rooms 12–16; Phoenician temple (?); Room 12 workshop; Room 16; Phoenician temple; Area II Tomb 6; adyton; offering table; altar; copper workshop; bull masks; Temple 1; Temple 2; Temple 3; industrial quarter; Room XVI; Temenos A; Temenos B; propylaeum; bothroi of the Phoenician temple; temenos A; temenos B; sacred garden; altars; propylon; Rooms 35–38; altars A-C; bothros 16; Temple 4; fifth temple (?); Temple 5; ivory hoard; cupmarked blocks; stone anchors; metallurgical workshops; town wall and gate; Sector IV tower; bothroi; Tower A; Tower B; Temple 6 (?); north tower; floor IIIA; Rooms 127 A-C; Room 126; sacred garden wall.

Tombs

Tomb 4+5, Tomb 6, Tomb 8, Tomb 9, Area II, Tomb 6, Tomb 10, Tomb 11

Publications

20 items

Annual reports of the Department of Antiquities

Archaeology in Cyprus, 1959–61

Chronique des fouilles (Bulletin de correspondance hellénique)

Other fieldwork at Kition · 11

References

1.V. Karageorghis, 1966, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1965, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 90.
2.V. Karageorghis, 1969, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1968, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 93.
3.V. Karageorghis, 1970, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1969, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 94.
4.V. Karageorghis, 1971, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1970, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 95.
5.V. Karageorghis, 1960, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1959, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 84.
6.V. Karageorghis, 1963, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1962, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 87.
7.V. Karageorghis, 1976, Kition: Mycenaean and Phoenician Discoveries in Cyprus, Thames and Hudson, New Aspects of Antiquity.
8.V. Karageorghis, 1964, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1963, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 88.
9.V. Karageorghis, 1965, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1964, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 89.
10.V. Karageorghis, 1967, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1966, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 91.
11.V. Karageorghis, 1968, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1967, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 92.
12.V. Karageorghis, 1977, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1976, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 101.
13.V. Karageorghis, 1972, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1971, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 96.
14.V. Karageorghis, 1975, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1974, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 99.
15.V. Karageorghis, 1976, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1975, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 100.
16.1981, Archaeology in Cyprus, 1976–80.
17.V. Karageorghis, 1978, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1977, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 102.
18.V. Karageorghis, 1979, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1978, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 103.
19.V. Karageorghis, 1980, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1979, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 104.
20.V. Karageorghis, 1973, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1972, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 97.
21.Antoine Hermary, 1984, Chronique d'archéologie chypriote, Cahiers du Centre d'Etudes Chypriotes 1.
22.V. Karageorghis, 1974–1985, Excavations at Kition I-V, Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, Nicosia.

Sources

1.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1959, pp. 43–46.
2.Archaeology in Cyprus, 1959–61, pp. 3–4.
3.Kition: Mycenaean and Phoenician Discoveries in Cyprus, p. 17; p. 26.
4.Αφιέρωμα στο Βάσο Καραγιώργη / Studies in Honour of Vassos Karageorghis, p. 3; p. 301.
5.Copper metallurgy in Iron Age Kition, p. 71.
6.Aspects peu connus de la contribution de Jacqueline Karageorghis à l'archéologie chypriote, p. 26.
7.Le théâtre romain de Salamine : Les phases chronologiques et la fonctionnalité du bâtiment de spectacle, p. 697.
8.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1976, p. 753; pp. 48–54.
9.Cypriot chamber tombs, p. 172.
10.City of Gold: The Archaeology of Polis Chrysochous, Cyprus, p. 38.
11.Greek and Cypriot Pottery: A Review of Scientific Studies, p. 322.
12.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1962, pp. 42–46.
13.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1963, pp. 58–66.
14.Temple-boys: A Study of Cypriote Votive Sculpture, Part 1. Catalogue, p. 83.
15.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1964, pp. 36–38.
16.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1965, pp. 67–68; pp. 70.
17.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1966, pp. 42–51; p. 315.
18.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1967, p. 43–52.
19.Les textes antiques ont-ils créé le mythe d'une prostitution sacrée à Chypre ?, p. 251.
20.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1968, pp. 88–98.
21.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1969, pp. 62–69.
22.Early Phoenician Presence in Cyprus: Analysis of Epigraphical Material, p. 121; p. 123.
23.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1970, pp. 44–57.
24.The Transport Amphorae and Trade of Cyprus, p. 5.
25.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1971, pp. 55–61.
26.A Study of the Circulation of Ceramics in Cyprus from the 3rd Century BC to the 3rd Century AD, p. 11.
27.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1972, pp. 49–54.
28.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1973, pp. 46–51.
29.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1974, pp. 32–36; p. 2.
30.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1975, pp. 38–43.
31.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1977, pp. 36–39.
32.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1978, pp. 29–31.
33.Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1979, pp. 24–26.
34.Glyptic, p. 631.
35.Salamine et Kition. Mission française 1964–2004, p. 70.
36.A Cypro-Mycenaean III C:1 Amphora from Kition, p. 192.
37.Chronique d'archéologie chypriote, p. 49.
38.Archaeological News from Cyprus, 1977–1978, p. 65.
39.View from the Bronze Age: Mycenaean and Phoenician Discoveries at Kition, p. 26.
40.Archaeology in Cyprus, 1976–80, p. 53.
41.Un nouveau timbre amphorique à légende syllabique de Kition, p. 23.
42.Cyprus and the Phoenicians, p. 207.
43.Copper and tin: The distribution of mineral resources and the nature of the metals trade in the Bronze Age, p. 91.
44.Archaeological News from Cyprus, 1972, p. 427.
45.Medicine and Healing in the Ancient Mediterranean World, p. 5.
46.An Inscribed Bronze Bowl from Cyprus in the Zintilis Collection, p. 100.