Palaepaphos: de Vogue and the Spilaion tis Reginas

Two large Cypriot syllabic inscriptions from the rock-cut tomb known as the Spilaion tis Regainas at Arkalon, Kouklia, were removed to the Musée du Louvre after the French mission of 1862^1,2. Melchior de Vogüé led the mission, and the navy aviso Prométhée was placed at his disposal for archaeological work³. Hermary gives the mission's broader aim as exploring Cyprus and collecting inscriptions⁴.

Edmond Duthoit, the architect, reports clearing part of the tomb and finding the two inscriptions, two antéfixes and a fragment of cornice, which he describes as in an elegant Greco-Roman style¹. His account and Maier's differ on where the inscriptions lay: Duthoit says they were built into the tomb's jambs, while Maier says one was already known from the tomb and a second was found in chamber debris^1,2. Tatton-Brown describes the difficult overland removal of the inscriptions to the coast, after which they reached the Louvre; Maier says de Vogüé removed them there in 1862^2,3.

Maier reads the inscriptions as identifying the Spilaion as the burial place of Timocharis and Echetimos, Paphian kings of the mid-fourth century BC, and calls it the only true royal tomb in Paphos known so far². Duthoit's correspondence of 1862 and 1865 was published by Foucart-Borville in 1985, and Maier's account of the tomb appeared in 1992^1,2.