Philia: the Department of Antiquities under Dikaios (Laksia tou Kasinou, Kafkalla, Vasiliko)

The four chamber tombs that Porphyrios Dikaios excavated at Philia-Laksia tou Kasinou in 1942–43 held Red Polished (Philia), White Painted (Philia), and Black Slip and Combed wares, among other vessels¹. Dikaios worked for the Department of Antiquities and called the cemetery Philia-Vasiliko; Webb and Frankel identify it as Philia-Laksia tou Kasinou and distinguish it from a settlement about 500 m to the northwest¹.

The tombs were of varied shape. Their reported finds include biconical spindle whorls, terracotta toggles, metal toggle pins, knives, spiral earrings, an axe, and shell and picrolite pendants, and a pithos that Dikaios believed had served as a burial jar¹. Fischer describes Tomb 1 as a round chamber with three bulging niche-like sections. Its southeastern part had been disturbed by army digging in December 1942, and the remains of at least three individuals lay in the less disturbed northern part, not in situ; finds could not be assigned to them because the skeletons were not numbered on the tomb plan². Bolger, citing Dikaios's report of 1962, describes the reuse of the Philia-Vasiliko tombs, with earlier occupants swept to the back of the chambers³.

In 1947 Dikaios excavated a Philia burial in Cemetery A at Philia/Vasiliko-Kafkalla. Webb and Frankel report six vessels from it in the Cyprus Museum, labeled Sotira Kaminaria Tomb 1¹. A fifth tomb was excavated in 1951. Webb and Frankel note Dikaios's description of it as about 100 m south-west of the other four, and suggest that a cemetery mapped 100 to 200 m west of Laksia tou Kasinou may be its location, which remains uncertain¹.