Soli: rescue excavations by the antiquities authorities in the north

In 2005 and 2006 the Soli Rescue Excavations took place in the Soloi necropolis at Soli, in the part of Cyprus occupied by Turkey since the invasion of 1974. They were carried out by the Turkish Cypriot antiquities authority in the occupied north, which Kaba's article names as the Department of Antiquities and Museums of the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" ("TRNC"), an entity recognised only by Turkey, without the permission of the Republic of Cyprus. The excavation was directed by Emine H. Sivri with Mehmet Şöföroğlu and Sibel Sabır as excavators¹. SRE Tomb 4, with burial chambers 4A and 4B, and other newly discovered tombs bear on the Cypro-Classical period at Soloi, according to Hazar Kaba, whose 2016 study concentrates on the gold and silver jewellery¹. Tomb 4 produced pottery, lamps, figurines, weapons, metal vessels and gold and silver jewellery, among it wreaths, a diadem, earrings, necklaces, armbands, bracelets, rings and dress ornaments¹. Kaba reads the quantity and variety of the jewellery as showing that those buried there belonged to Soloi's elite, and argues that it includes locally made or imitated forms as well as imports¹. Kaba states that the finds mentioned in her article, and many others, are on display in the exhibition "Golden Leaves of Soli" at the Museum of Archaeology and Nature at Morphou/Güzelyurt¹.