Meniko-Litharkes: the Department's excavation of the sanctuary

A seated terracotta Ba'al-hammân, a bull with two attendants and a chariot came from a small sanctuary at Litharkes, near Meniko, that stone collection for Nicosia airport had exposed¹. V. Karageorghis excavated it in 1952 for the Department of Antiquities¹.

The excavation uncovered a small cella, a forecourt and adjoining annexes. The walls were built of river stones below and mudbrick above. Most of the votives lay in the cella; they were mainly terracotta, in mid-sixth-century style, and had kept their colour¹. The finds also included a fleecy ram and painted incense-burners of stone and pottery¹. In his later account Karageorghis describes two architectural units, each with a courtyard and cella, and interprets the complex as twin sanctuaries. He reports burnt patches and ashes in a courtyard as suggestive of sacrifice, and an enclosure in each unit as a possible place for a sacred tree². He adds terracottas of human figures, bulls, horses and riders, and a bull being led to sacrifice².

Karageorghis dates the sanctuary to the end of the Cypro-Archaic period, with a cult established in the middle of the sixth century BC². He presents Meniko as a rural sanctuary with a Phoenician cult in central Cyprus and identifies its principal deity as Baal Hamman. The companion goddess he treats as less certain, discussing Tanit and Astarte as alternatives, and he allows that a limestone symbol in the second cella may be associated with Tanit². The Baal Hamman figurine, the bull group and the clay incense-burner stands are in the Cyprus Museum, Nicosia².