Mathiatis-Mavrovouni: the Department's rescue excavation of a sanctuary

At Mavrovouni, about 2 km southeast of Mathiatis village, the Department of Antiquities carried out an emergency excavation in 1983 on sanctuary ruins lying beneath a heap of copper slag; S. Hadjisavvas, an archaeologist of the Department, directed it¹. The annual report says the sanctuary seems to have been founded in the Cypro-Archaic period and used until the Hellenistic and Roman periods. It lists numerous limestone statues, from very small to larger than life, and a substantial collection of painted terracottas, including chariots and horsemen. Among the pieces it records are a painted terracotta horseman 20.7 cm high, a pair of limestone legs in high relief (22 cm), an oversized limestone hand holding a jug, and a larger-than-life Hellenistic head of a bearded man wearing a wreath¹. V. Karageorghis suggests that the sanctuary was probably dedicated to a healing deity¹.