Soli: Ohnefalsch-Richter's 1883 digs in the Soloi valley

In 1883 Max Ohnefalsch-Richter excavated for the Cyprus Museum a Bronze Age necropolis east of the villages of Katydhata and Linou, with very late transitional tombs toward the Graeco-Phoenician period; the cemetery was reused in Hellenistic and Roman times¹.

He also excavated a sanctuary of a female deity, perhaps Aphrodite, whose characteristic offerings the catalogue identifies as ring-dances and flute-players, along with an early silver plate with floral ornament and a fragmentary bronze plaque embossed with a Gigantomachia¹. The plaque is in the Cyprus Museum as no. 3870. The catalogue lists votive terracottas from the temenos at Soli, among them ring-dance figures and double-flute players, under numbers including 5401 to 5447¹. At the Soloi necropolis he opened tombs; the ancient town site was clearly defined but not explored¹.

Kiely and Merrillees distinguish this Museum-sponsored work from Ohnefalsch-Richter's work in the same localities for private clients, named by Reinach: Sir Robert Biddulph, Samuel Brown, Stevenson (presumably Captain A. Scott-Stevenson), Gordon, Tyler and Fahlwas, a garbled form of Surgeon-Major F. Falwasser². They describe the Ottoman antiquities law as allowing an excavator to keep at least one-third of finds, without specifying the division for each client². Brown applied in 1883 for a permit to dig at Soli near Lefka². A glass tumbler associated with Biddulph's collection was deposited in the South Kensington Museum¹.