Palaepaphos: Department of Antiquities excavations under E. Raptou

In late 1999 gravel extraction for the Limassol-Paphos highway exposed a Cypro-Geometric necropolis at Kouklia-Plakes, on the west bank of the Diarhizos, and Eustathios Raptou of the Department of Antiquities excavated seven of its tombs as a rescue¹. Road machinery had disturbed T. 146 and cut T. 144 from north to south, and scientific excavation was possible only in the spared parts¹. In T. 146 a woman buried in situ under an Archaic floor wore a tiara with gold plaques, gold earrings and rosettes, and an intact terracotta bathtub held bronzes and stone vases. T. 142 held an in situ Cypro-Geometric II/III woman with gold plaques and a faience ring with hieroglyphs, and an earlier burial with a broken limestone bathtub and an iron trident¹. Raptou places the foundation of the necropolis around the mid-eleventh century BC, and reads the burials as evidence of a local aristocracy blending Aegean, local and eastern elements¹. Raptou published three tombs in 2002 and reserved the final publication; staff of the Paphos and Nicosia museums saved and treated the material¹. Karageorghis and Raptou published the Plakes tomb groups in 2014².

From autumn 2008 Raptou directed salvage excavations at Palaepaphos-Skales, on a plot of orchards being subdivided. The Department agreed to issue building permits only if each was preceded by an excavation, paid for by the landowners³. The tombs, numbered 185 to 235, were mostly Cypro-Geometric chamber tombs, with some Late Cypriote IIIB, Cypro-Archaic and Cypro-Classical ones; Tomb 192, a female burial, is pure Late Cypriote IIIB³. Tomb 188 held a cremation in a White Painted I amphora with a bronze helmet, shield boss and mace-head, and Tomb 187 a large bronze amphora on a plinth³. Raptou writes that excavation was not always carried out with adequate care, though a large number of tombs were saved and more or less properly documented; Karageorghis notes that looters, attracted by gold in the tombs, are active at Skales to the present day³. Three more Cypro-Geometric tomb groups were excavated in winter/spring 2011³. Vassos Karageorghis and Raptou published the 2008 and 2011 excavations in 2016. The bronze amphora from Tomb 187 was treated by the Department's conservators, and many more tomb groups await treatment and publication, stored in the museum at Kouklia in conditions Karageorghis calls unsuitable³.