Lapithos: Department of Antiquities rescue excavations

The Department of Antiquities worked at Lapithos in 1954, when levelling in the Gymnasium grounds brought to notice a previously unknown Bronze Age cemetery¹. Vassos Karageorghis cleared three intact chambers that opened onto one dromos¹. The lower burial layer held Red- and Black-Polished II pottery; the upper layer and the other chambers held White-Painted II-III, contemporary Red Polished wares and bronze objects¹.

In 1958 the Department explored one Middle Cypriot tomb at Fahtari, where chance finds had already indicated a cemetery. Its goods were bronze objects and flat idols of lustrous red clay, reported as held by the Cyprus Museum under inventory number 1958/X-31/1². In 1965 a small tomb at Kastros contained a single burial, with Red Slip I, White Painted III and Black-on-Red I pottery, among it a large Black-on-Red flask³. A tomb found by accident at Varkes in 1966 was a partly disturbed rectangular chamber with a corbel vault and a stepped dromos. It was assigned to the early Hellenistic period; the excavators were Michael Loulloupis and A. Christodoulou⁴. The tomb held five Rhodian-type amphorae, one painted KOD, jugs, unguentaria, skyphoi, eleven coins, three of them of Ptolemy II, a bronze spatula, glass beads and eggshells⁴.

In 1968, levelling for a new road to Kyrenia exposed numerous tombs. The Archaeological Exploration Service excavated 21 of them under A. Christodoulou: three at Vrysi tou Barba, about 1 km north-west of the village, and eighteen at Sotira, about 1 km to the north^5,6. The finds included Red Polished III pottery, bronze dagger blades and other tools, pins, tweezers and faience beads⁵. Karageorghis dated the tombs to the end of the Early Bronze Age on the strength of the Red Polished III pottery and the contemporary bronzes⁵.

In 1973 three Cypro-Geometric III tombs at the western edge of Lapithos, registered as CS. 2010, 2020 and 2021, yielded common pottery, a plain silver diadem, two gold-plated bronze spiral rings and two bronze bracelets⁷.