Milia: the Swedish Cyprus Expedition tombs

In 1928 the police reported clandestine excavations near Milia to the Cyprus Museum, and the Swedish Cyprus Expedition obtained a permit to investigate in February and March of that year¹. Alfred Westholm excavated a number of the rock-cut tombs around the village and selected four for publication. Göransson describes most of the tombs around Milia as looted¹.

The published tombs were of the dromos-and-burial-chamber type. One was empty; the others contained several vases imported from Syria or Greece, and the finds showed, in the excavators' reading, that the tombs had been reused. The tombs were dated to Late Cypriote I and II (1600 to 1200 BC)¹.

Later scholarship discusses Tombs 10 to 13 under the name Milia-Vikla Trachonas. Keswani reports that Tomb 10 was looted overnight during the excavation and that one burial lay in a semi-contracted position inside a stone-rubble "sarcophagus". Tomb 12 was found empty, and the excavators interpreted it as a cenotaph; Keswani notes that it may instead have been an emptied temporary burial feature. Tomb 13 had been partially disturbed long before excavation. Tomb 11 was relatively intact, with four Late Cypriot burials and one of Iron Age date. Three of the Late Cypriot skeletons seem to have lacked their skulls and other upper body parts, which Keswani suggests may be "perhaps an indication of some form of secondary treatment"². Artzy, Asaro and Perlman analysed 39 Bichrome pieces from Milia by neutron activation and argue that the analysed Bichrome groups from Milia and Tell el-'Ajjul very likely have the same provenience³. Westholm's report on the tombs appeared in 1939 as "Some Late Cypriote Tombs at Milia" in the Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine⁴.