Kato Paphos: Department of Antiquities rescue excavations of the 1980s

Directed by

• Demetrios MichaelidesArchaeological Officer for Paphos1980–1987

• Department of Antiquities of CyprusSponsor
• Paphos District MuseumHost

1. 1980

   Rock-cut chamber tomb with five loculi and niches used in the 2nd c. AD; small gold earrings from a child burial illustrated.

   [1]

2. 1983

   Eleven tombs: intact Hellenistic rock-cut tombs, some reused in Roman times, and Roman tombs. T. 3 had ten early Hellenistic vases, bronze mirrors, a strigil and silver coins; T. 7 an Attic red-figure lekythos; T. 16 gold earrings; T. 22 yielded a large set of bronze and iron surgical instruments, a lock and glass unguentaria. Large rock-cut atrium tomb with side chambers, first used in the Hellenistic period but all burials Roman; partly robbed; many glass unguentaria and clay lamps. Seven tombs; six small robbed pits and one large rock-cut Hellenistic tomb with Roman reburials (140 objects: unguentaria, lamps, mirror with repoussé lid, gold earring, gold ring with engraved lyre-player gem). A built imperial-period tomb (XI) with plastered painted chambers and sarcophagi under a dome, entirely robbed; next to it a probable funerary preparation room (XII); T. 7 of plot 321/1 had painted sarcophagi and fresco, detached for treatment. Four Greco-Roman tombs, three partly robbed; one intact square chamber with benches and loculi sealed by sandstone slabs with Greek letters; glass unguentaria, gold earrings, bronze mirror. Roman rock-cut tomb with remains of a built structure, at least four arcosolia and a vaulted entrance; heavily plundered; silver and bronze ornaments, glass unguentaria, lamps, an African Red Slip dish, bone and stone spindle items.

   [3]

3. 1984

   177 tombs excavated at construction sites, 33 empty, from late Classical to late Roman, most Hellenistic and Severan: Attic red-figure lekythoi, White Painted VII jug, Phoenician-graffito amphora, Hellenistic gold diadem and hair pin, glass amphora, Roman jewellery, glass strigil and lead vessels.

   [4]

4. 1986

   121 tombs, five pits and a well: 113 Hellenistic-Roman tombs at Nea Paphos East necropolis, painted rock-cut tombs MP 2892 and 2902, a Ktima chamber tomb MP 2918, plus single Archaic tombs at Mesoyi and Kissonerga; Hellenistic tombs elsewhere; at Emba a tomb filled with medieval sugar-making equipment. Many gold jewels and glass unguentaria.

   Directed by D. Michaelides[5]

5. 1987

   Overview: the Department continued main digs at Kato Paphos, Kourion and Amathus, with many rescue excavations including Kalavassos village tombs and tombs at Kandou during Kouris dam works; thirteen foreign missions are listed. An intact tomb with an alabaster flask; a Renaissance-period looted tomb filled with rubbish and much pottery including a northern Italian majolica dish; 33 Hellenistic and Roman tombs dug in 1987, mainly at the Annabelle Hotel plot, with a neo-Babylonian chalcedony cone seal and a garnet female head bead. Seventeen hasty 7th-century AD burials in rows, no offerings, in a refuse pit, supposed victims of Arab raids; a ruined circular tower below, built after the 4th-century earthquake, projecting from the Sea Walls, conserved.

   Directed by D. Michaelides[6]

1. 1.V. Karageorghis, 1984, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1983, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 108.
2. 2.D. J. Symons, 1986–1987, Archaeology in Cyprus, 1981–85, Archaeological Reports 33.
3. 3.V. Karageorghis, 1981, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1980, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 105.
4. 4.V. Karageorghis, 1985, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1984, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 109.
5. 5.V. Karageorghis, 1987, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1986, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 111.
6. 6.V. Karageorghis, 1988, Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1987, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 112.