Souskiou-Vathyrkakas: Department excavations of the Chalcolithic cemetery

Between 1991 and 1997 excavators of the Department of Antiquities investigated 34 rock-cut tombs with human remains at the Chalcolithic cemetery of Souskiou-Vathyrkakas; Lorentz, citing Peltenburg 2006, adds that some were re-investigations of tombs excavated earlier¹. Bolger and Lorentz both give 1991 to 1997 for the campaign^1,2. Demos Christou of the Department of Antiquities directed it, and Steel names Evi Baxevani with him as director^2,3. Lorentz notes that no human-remains specialist took part and that the remains were published only later¹.

Steel's surveys report picrolite figurines, among them cruciform ones, Red-on-White vessels, a vase in the form of a bunch of grapes, and a unique terracotta figurine of a pregnant woman^3,4. Bolger describes an anthropomorphic vessel in the form of a pregnant female from a multiple burial of an adult with three small children and a possible adolescent; it is on display in Room 1 of the Cyprus Museum, Nicosia². Tomb 3 held 20 picrolite pendants, 16 of them cruciform, with the burials of three adult females and an eight-year-old child². Winkelmann reports 1180 dentalium beads and 15 cruciforms from Tomb 23⁵. Keswani reports that Christou interpreted thick ash layers mixed with animal and bird bones in the fill of the intact Tombs 1, 2 and 3 as evidence of sacrifices for the dead⁶.

Steel dates the cemetery between 3500 and 3000 BC³. Winkelmann counts 82 Middle Chalcolithic tombs at the cemetery, 19 of which held cruciform pendants⁵. Peltenburg, Bolger and Crewe report that 56% of the features at Vathyrkakas were severely looted and only 12% were found intact⁷. Lorentz re-examined all the Souskiou-Vathyrkakas human remains curated by the Department of Antiquities¹.