Marion: Cyprus Museum excavations at Polis (Markides and Gunnis)

At Polis, Menelaos Markides excavated tombs in October and November 1916, with Gregorios Antoniou as his foreman, and returned in May 1918. The two campaigns together opened about sixty tombs¹. The excavations were funded privately by Charles G. Gunther¹. Markides had begun planning excavations at Polis by 1912. Childs, Smith and Padgett place this against contemporary concern about objects from illegal excavations and attempts to buy gold from tombs¹.

His notebooks and reports recorded associations between objects, tomb architecture and burials. Some measured tomb plans located sarcophagi and objects, including finds in dromoi, and preserved skeletons were drawn. Childs, Smith and Padgett call it the first excavation at Polis for which photographs of the tombs survive; one shows the finds in situ in Tomb 12, at Polis-Kaparka¹. The tombs remained largely unpublished, with a few objects, especially inscriptions, as exceptions¹.

In June 1927 Rupert Forbes Gunnis investigated tombs and the town site at Marion. He planned and described a tomb on Kaparka hill and reported his work to Markides¹. Childs, Smith and Padgett suggest that his first town area was probably Petrerades, where he uncovered part of a Byzantine basilica apse and tombs. They tentatively identify his second area as Maratheri, where, they report, he uncovered in three days about five hundred statues, statuettes and figurines, male and female, including a terracotta foot belonging to a colossal statue¹.