Pano Pyrgos-Auli: the Kykkos Museum excavation of the medieval structure

At Auli, in the village of Pano Pyrgos Tillyrias, a medieval building of squared sandstone was being uncovered by the Museum of the Monastery of Kykkos, and the second season ran from 5 to 30 October 2009¹. Stylianos Perdikis, Director of the Kykkos Museum, directed it, assisted by Vasiliki Lysandrou, archaeologist of the museum, and Georgios Koumis, Senior Technician of the Department of Antiquities; Ourania Perdikis took part as a volunteer. The Monastery of Kykkos funded the work¹.

The team worked in the area north of the structures found in the previous season¹. The building, constructed entirely of sandstone ashlars, continued northward. Its east wing ran south to north for 38 m and measured 6.30 m across, with six rooms, and the building as then revealed had eight rooms in all; a third wing extending west was still under excavation. In plot 503, walls of rough local volcanic stone and abundant mortar were located to the northwest. They did not yet define complete rooms, and the report relates them to the complex in the eastern part of the area¹. The report identifies the structure as medieval. Finds were Plain White and Glazed vessels, imported Majolica ware and a bronze ring with engraved decoration¹. Two medieval coins were a silver denier of Henry II Lusignan (1285–1324) and a bronze Venetian tornecello of Doge Andrea Contarini (1368–1382)¹. An Ottoman pipe with red slip came from the upper layers¹.

The report states that the structure was ransacked for stone towards the end of the 19th century, and that the material was carried to Pano Pyrgos and reused in village houses. A survey inventoried and photographed those houses¹. A 2025 newspaper report gives Perdikis's suggestion that the complex may be a local feudal manor, and describes a two-storey rectangular building around a central courtyard, occupied from the late 12th to the mid-17th century². The report adds that the project is nearing completion, with one or two parcels of land still to be expropriated and conservation and restoration under way to make the site accessible².