Kourion: the Department's excavations on the acropolis and in the city (Christou)

The acropolis of Kourion gave up a Roman colonnaded stoa more than 64 m long, a nymphaeum measuring about 45 by 15 m with an almost intact limestone fountain, and the baths beside it, all in the Department of Antiquities excavations directed by Demos Christou^1,2,3.

The acropolis, 1975 to 1984

The Department of Antiquities campaigns under Christou began in 1975⁴. The first season examined an area 35 m northeast of the early Christian basilica where, according to the report, no excavation or sondage had ever been made^4,5. An excavation of about 20 by 30 m there uncovered Roman and early Christian domestic remains over four probably Hellenistic cisterns, and a monumental Hellenistic building that its pottery dated to 325 to 250 BC⁵. In 1976 the work extended into the southeast and southwest sectors. It found a monumental ashlar wall with marble column bases and an inscription mentioning a gymnasium, finished the excavation of a Hellenistic open pool and its 28 m rock-cut drainage tunnel, and recorded Roman and Hellenistic cisterns and channels⁶.

In 1977 the parallel walls of the earlier seasons were identified as a Roman colonnaded stoa 4.40 m wide and more than 64 m long. Five rooms, a seventh-century room and a lime-kiln dump were also excavated, and the finds included a marble head of Aphrodite, a bronze candlestick and 86 bronze coins¹. The 1978 season partly exposed a monumental public building west of the stoa, whose apsidal niche and rosy-marble floor suggested a connection with the acropolis baths. It also found the end of the stoa, early Christian rooms, a rock-cut cistern and plundered Hellenistic Tomb 6, a single chamber south of the large open pool that yielded Hellenistic sherds⁷.

The next campaigns cleared that building. In 1979 the report records earthquake destruction, early Christian rebuilding and later abandonment, a 16 m² geometric mosaic with an inscription, and a medieval lime kiln⁸. In 1980 removal of a sand deposit up to 3 m deep exposed about 300 m², with polychrome mosaics, late Corinthian capitals, marble statue fragments and inscriptions⁹. In 1981 the removal of an average 3.5 m of sand over about 200 m² exposed more of the building; the report proposed an initial Roman construction, destruction in AD 76 to 77, rebuilding and enlargement under Trajan in AD 101 to 102, later Christian rebuilding, and abandonment after Arab raids¹⁰. In 1982 fourteen trenches investigated a Hellenistic ashlar building in the north sector whose south wall exceeded 25 m, and the report dated its use from the beginning to the middle of the first century BC¹¹.

The nymphaeum and baths

In the spring of 1983 the excavators exposed the 42 m northeast wall and north corner of the Roman public building together with the limestone fountain, and the report identified the complex as a nymphaeum. It distinguished four phases and attributed the destruction to the earthquakes of AD 370². The 1984 report gave the building as 45 by 15 m and dated its first phase to the early first century AD, a second to the reign of Trajan after destruction probably by the earthquakes of AD 76, a third to the second century with exterior extensions, and a last early Christian phase after the fourth-century earthquakes, about AD 410 to 650^2,3.

In 1987 three apsidal fountains were cleaned and described, supplied by a rectangular cistern. Four adjacent rooms with hypocaust remains were identified as the Roman baths, and two early Christian rooms with reused marble floor slabs were excavated¹². A later summary describes a bath complex with seven caldaria with hypocausts, a frigidarium and several changing rooms¹³. Herscher reported in 1998 that the nymphaeum and bath complex was built in stages from the first half of the first century AD and destroyed, presumably by earthquake, in the later fourth century, with parts of a gymnasium beside it. South of the stoa the Roman forum had a sloping paved courtyard apparently enclosed by stoas on all four sides, and a mid-second-century BC pebble mosaic from an earlier public building was found in 1991^14,15.

Ayios Ermoyenis and the coastal basilica

In 1989 and 1990 Christou investigated a monumental tomb in the necropolis at Ayios Ermoyenis. It had three successive burials, the earliest dated about 500 to 474 BC and the latest to the middle of the fourth century BC¹⁶. Herscher describes a rectangular gabled chamber of limestone blocks with a sloping dromos 24 m long¹⁵. Kiely and Perna write that the built tomb may be Christou's royal sepulchre if his interpretation is correct¹⁷.

From 1993, according to Costello, Christou began exposing the Christian basilica on the beach below the south face of the acropolis; Horster and others give the excavation as 1994 to 1998^4,18. It was a three-aisled basilica with three apses and marble colonnades, which Herscher dates to the early sixth century¹⁴. The work of 1997 and 1998 also covered the Roman agora, where the excavators found a small naiskos-like building at the southeast end of the south portico and a watchtower adjoining the town wall, dated by associated finds to the Cypro-Classical period. At the basilica they exposed four porticoes, annex buildings and polychrome geometric mosaics of the fifth and sixth centuries, as well as an earlier mosaic of the late fourth century¹⁹. Costello gives 1998 as the end of the Department campaigns, while Herscher expected them to close with Christou's retirement at the end of 1997^4,14.

Publication

Christou's Excavations at Kourion 1975–1998 appeared in Nicosia in 2013²⁰. Keane describes its treatment of the coastal basilica as about 70 pages with a floor plan, profile sections and a partial catalogue of coins, architectural marbles, mosaics and a selection of pottery, and says that the volume combined the coastal basilica and the acropolis excavation²⁰. Costello wrote in 2014 that the Ayios Ermoyenis tomb and the coastal basilica, with their finds, remained almost completely unpublished apart from short reports⁴. Keane examined excavation material from the coastal basilica in the warehouses of the Episkopi Archaeological Museum in 2017 and 2022²⁰.