Souskiou-Vathyrkakas: Department rescue with the Swiss-German Expedition

At the Chalcolithic cemetery of Souskiou-Vathyrkakas, the Swiss-German mission directed by F.-G. Maier undertook a small rescue excavation in the summer of 1972 at the request of the Department of Antiquities^1,2. After renewed looting in the autumn, the Department decided to continue the emergency excavation, and D. Christou directed its clearance¹.

Four intact tombs were cleaned and a plan was made of the cemetery, which the report counts as 25 tombs¹. The tombs were bottle-shaped rock-cut graves, narrow at the top and wider at the base, with the dead placed in contracted positions; some had been reused and held two or three skulls¹. The grave goods included Red-on-White bowls, dentalium shells and small grey-green steatite pendants shaped as miniature human cruciforms, with one animal-shaped pendant, and a decorated jar neck¹. Parras gives a later account in which the Department located another five graves between 4 and 10 December².

Karageorghis's annual report states that a large number of vases and steatite idols from looted tombs were then in private collectors' possession¹. A stone phallus associated with the looted tombs was acquired by the Cyprus Museum¹.