Pyrgos: Department rescue excavations in the village cemetery (1960s)

Rescue excavations by the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus at Pyrgos in 1963, 1964 and 1966 opened Early Bronze Age cemetery tombs rich in Red-Polished pottery and a large Cypro-Classical I tomb in the village. Karageorghis's annual notices report the finds and registration numbers^1,2,3.

In 1963 a fifth tomb in the Early Bronze Age cemetery was excavated (registration no. 327). It held mainly large Red-Polished vessels, among them a two-handled pithos, bowls, jugs and an amphora with human-face handles¹. In 1964 six further tombs of the cemetery were excavated (nos. 351 to 354 and 357 to 358), and some had already been looted. The registered finds included large pithoi, jugs, bowls, incised clay spindle whorls and two bronze fibulae².

The 1966 notice records three tombs. No. 388, a small tomb dated by the report to Early Bronze Age III or Middle Bronze Age, yielded a decorated bone rod, possibly a spindle, a steatite spindle whorl with dotted circles, and Red-Polished bowls and jugs³. No. 391, in the school yard, contained Red-Polished pottery and clay and steatite spindle whorls and is placed in the same broad period³. No. 389, in the village, was a large Cypro-Classical I tomb with abundant pottery: undecorated jugs, some shaped after metal vessels, Bichrome Red II to V amphoriskoi decorated with stylised trees, and a jug associated with the Amathus region, painted black with white drops³. The notice associates finds from the Pyrgos tombs, including objects illustrated from no. 388, with the Limassol District Museum³.