Kyra: Dikaios's trial excavations

At Kyra-Alonia, Porphyrios Dikaios dug trial trenches in 1945 that Webb and Frankel count among the very limited sources for Philia settlement material¹. The trenches yielded ash and floor deposits but no architecture, and Dikaios did not locate walls¹. The pottery included Red Polished Philia (RP(P)), Black Slip and Combed (BSC) and Red Polished Coarse (RPC(P)) wares¹. A later pottery study identifies one of the trenches as trial trench IIc².

The same year Dikaios salvaged one tomb at Kyra-Kaminia, in a cemetery Webb and Frankel describe as looted. The tomb was a shallow oval pit holding two burials, with metal knives and earrings and vessels of RP(P) and White Painted Philia (WP(P)); no tomb number is given¹.

Dikaios, in Dikomitou's summary, placed the material from Kyra-Alonia and Kaminia, together with Philia Vasiliko, in the initial stage of Early Cypriot I; Dikaios and J. R. Stewart held differing views on the chronology and historical context of the Philia culture². Webb and Frankel cite Dikaios's account of Alonia on pages 152 to 155 and of the Kaminia tomb on pages 156 to 159 of The Stone Age and the Early Bronze Age in Cyprus (1962, by Dikaios and J. R. B. Stewart)¹.