Leondari Vouno, Nicosia: the Cyprus Exploration Fund (1888)

In 1888 M. R. James excavated at Leondari Vouno, Nicosia, for the Cyprus Exploration Fund¹. Ulbrich and Kiely describe the work as a trial excavation undertaken to learn Cypriot methods of working². The 1899 catalogue entry places settlement remains mainly on the north half of the hill and burial caves on the south half. It records traces of an early settlement with cisterns, foundations, primitive millstones, spindlewhorls and rough pottery, and massive masonry whose age it calls disputed^1,3. A tumulus contained Bronze Age objects¹. Merrillees and Krpata date the remains to the Early and Middle Bronze Ages³. The half-natural burial caves held pottery and bronze and silver spirals of Bronze Age types¹.

Ohnefalsch-Richter reported a lance head with a tube as found by Mr. James at Leondari Vouno⁴. Laura Gagné, in her study of Middle Cypriot White Painted Ware, argues that the White Painted pottery of the necropolis appears to have come from both the Lapithos production centre and a production centre in the Mesaoria. She notes that the 1888 work was not done well and its results were not well published⁵. Ulbrich and Kiely state that the preliminary report was never followed by a full publication².

The 1899 catalogue of the Cyprus Museum names the Fitzwilliam Museum as the destination of the excavation finds, and a later history of the museum states that the Fitzwilliam received division material from the Leondari Vouno excavations^1,6.