Kition: the Salt Lake Sanctuary Digs of Maricourt, Colnaghi and Pierides

A votive deposit of terracotta figurines, mostly female, beside the Salt Lake at Larnaca-Salines was dug by the Maricourt family with spades and then in a 14-day campaign by Dominic Ellis Colnaghi and the French consul^1,2. Maillard dates the discovery and the family digging to autumn 1864, while Bonato places it shortly after Léon de Maricourt left on 13 January 1865, when Charles de Maricourt found the fragments^1,2. Bonato and Maillard name Charles as the discoverer, where some older accounts credit Louis or "Eugène"^1,2. In July 1865 Dominic Ellis Colnaghi, the British vice-consul, joined the French consul Louis Dumesnil de Maricourt for the campaign, and the local antiquarian Demetrios Pierides took part^1,3. Maillard estimates that the campaign produced probably more than one hundred figurines, and reports that they were divided between the Maricourt family and the English team, whose share was acquired for the British Museum¹.

Pierides described seated Aphrodite or Persephone-Aphrodite types and some grouped figures⁴. Bonato dates the figurines to the fourth or third century BC². Two terracottas labelled as from the Salines are in the British Museum, a seated woman with a young girl (BM 2.1866.1–1) and a statuette with a high calathos decorated with flowers and sphinxes (BM 171.1866.1–1)¹. About thirty fragments from the Maricourt family collection are at the Louvre under the name "Eugène de Maricourt", which Bonato says should be corrected to Charles de Maricourt².

Maillard argues that the deposits were votive pits and that the commonly assigned location of the sanctuary is mistaken, since the votive deposits, architectural remains and later dedications may belong to distinct nearby areas; she places the find area near the present Salt Lake path, now covered by military-base buildings¹. Yon notes that the association with Artemis Paralia rests on an inscription of the second century AD, later than the figurines, and Cassimatis considers it unsafe to call the Louvre figurines offerings to Artemis Paralia^5,6.