Ayia Paraskevi, Nicosia: the Melbourne Cyprus Expedition

In 1955 J. R. B. Stewart directed the Melbourne Cyprus Expedition of the University of Melbourne in the north-east sector of the cemetery at Ayia Paraskevi, Nicosia¹. His group obtained permits from the Department of Antiquities and permission from the landowners to dig there². Eve Stewart took part, and a later account says she excavated at Ayia Paraskevi with J. R. Stewart³. Merrillees gives the expedition's aims as clarifying the origins of the Early Bronze Age in Cyprus and obtaining antiquities for display and teaching at the Nicholson Museum and to reward its sponsors³.

The excavation was of shallow pit graves damaged by ploughing. They yielded new pottery types, including red-on-white painted ware, and a necklace of very small paste beads¹. As reported by Megaw, Stewart argued that the Philia material from Ayia Paraskevi and Vasilia was contemporary with the earliest phase, site A, of the Vounous cemetery; he considered that Philia may have started earlier but did not give rise to the Vounous culture¹.

At the division of finds, Cyprus retained the largest tomb from Ayia Paraskevi².