Tamassos: the German mission (DAI) under Buchholz

At Tamassos, near Politiko, the German mission re-dug the tombs Ohnefalsch-Richter had explored in 1889, then uncovered a sanctuary of Aphrodite-Astarte with a stratified sequence from Geometric occupation to Ptolemaic rebuilding, surrounded by metalworking installations.^1,2,3

H.-G. Buchholz of the University of Giessen (Universität Gießen) directed the work for the German Archaeological Institute.^1,4 The declared aim was to prepare Ohnefalsch-Richter's unpublished manuscript Tamassos und Idalion for publication, by targeted re-excavation and an evaluation of the finds of his digs of 1885, 1889 and 1894.^4,5 Recke notes that the excavations had in many respects the character of a control of earlier work, and the activities were extended to the wider surrounding area.^4,6 The manuscript is preserved in Berlin, and documents of 1889 in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin were used to relocate the tombs.^1,6

The Royal Tombs, 1970 and 1971

The first campaign began at the end of the summer of 1970, with survey and excavation in the necropolis of Tamassos. Using Ohnefalsch-Richter's manuscript and plans, the team relocated a number of his burials: a large tomb used from the end of the Early Bronze Age into the Middle Bronze Age, with bronze or copper tools (flat axes, razors) and broken pottery in unstratified fill, and a Geometric rock-cut chamber tomb that was found empty.^1,7 Near the square before the Royal Tombs, a surface excavation found part of a cult place with many bothroi, mostly Archaic, filled with charcoal, ash, bones, lamps, terracottas and pottery, together with a clay Astarte idol and a limestone crouching lion carrying a woman's foot, read as a standing goddess on lions. The excavators thought the spot lay outside the Archaic town and was not the Mother of the Gods sanctuary of 1889.¹

In 1971 the second season re-examined the three built tombs dug in 1889. The dromos of Tomb IV (the notice's numbering) was partly excavated in a small trial trench and gave a pointed bronze helmet with cheek pieces, horse blinkers and a fragmentary bronze plaque with lotus and Hathor heads, matching the manuscript.⁵ Other pieces of such a plaque have been in the Berlin museum since 1889.⁸ In 1972 a Royal Tomb partly cleared in 1889 was dug again. The chamber was empty, but the dromos yielded part of a heavy iron sword, a bronze helmet, a bronze plaque with Hathor heads and lotus, rosettes, and a horse blinker with an ivory and malachite eye.⁸ The Tomb 4 dromos held a chariot and horse burial, with bronze blinkers, horse frontlets, a Cypro-Archaic helmet and bronze shield fittings, which the 1971 notice compares with the royal tombs of Salamis.^5,6 Buchholz studied and restored Tomb 5, which has an antechamber and a burial chamber.⁶

The sanctuary and the metallurgical quarter, 1972 to 1980

In 1972 a sanctuary of the "Astarte of Tamassos" was excavated nearby, with an entrance on the north, a court, vestibule and cella, and orthostates in situ. Finds included votive pottery, an Archaic female head and a silver coin of Euelthon of Salamis. West of it lay an industrial quarter where copper was smelted and worked.^8,9 In 1973 the clearance continued with new offering deposits of pottery, lamps, coins and terracotta figurines, and foundations of the Archaic and Classical city wall were followed at the east edge of the sanctuary.¹⁰

The fifth campaign, in September 1975, explored about 700 m2 around the temple. Furnaces and slag heaps surrounded it, two phases of city wall were exposed between the sanctuary and the Royal Tombs, and the altar was cleared with earlier votive deposits and traces of Geometric occupation beneath Archaic levels. The votives included terracotta Astarte idols, a horse and rider, a relief of Aphrodite with a pomegranate, and doves.² The 1976 notice says the altar was set up at the end of the 6th century BC, over the ruins of an earlier building.¹¹ The sanctuary gave a stratified sequence: an oldest temple of Cypro-Archaic II over Cypro-Archaic I or earlier structures, a rebuild at the time of the Persian wars, a Hellenistic replanning and, after a major catastrophe, probably an earthquake, reduced reuse.^2,12

The sixth campaign, in September 1976, followed more of the city wall near the Royal Tombs and worked on the sanctuaries of Astarte-Aphrodite and the Mother of the Gods. It also covered ancient mines at Petaloudhia and Kambia and five known cemeteries, and U. Zwicker of Erlangen studied the ancient slags. Wood from the Kambia mining installations was sent for radiocarbon analysis, which gave a date printed as 685/660 to 110 BC.¹¹ West of the main excavation a monolithic limestone altar, 1.35 by 1.40 m and 0.70 m high, with a central basin and eighteen small cavities, lay in a quarried area; the 1976 notice calls it unique in Cyprus. The same notice lists the finds of the 1889 Alakati tombs as traced in the museums of Berlin, Cambridge and Nicosia, and two Astarte idols from Petaloudhia are in the Cyprus Museum.¹¹

In 1977 the seventh campaign made a final investigation of the Aphrodite altar and the Mother of the Gods altar, and recovered hundreds of animal bones from offerings; G. Nobis was to study them. At Lambertis hill and Troulia it found Early Bronze Age sherds and stone objects and a first dry-stone Early Cypriot wall, and near Ayios Mnason it excavated two Hellenistic tombs. The notice relates the goddess worshipped there to Cybele, as a limestone sculpture of a goddess seated on a throne flanked by lions seems to indicate.¹² In 1978 the excavated area was extended north and west. A room floor of the early 5th century BC strewn with fallen plaster painted in dark red was found north of the altar and reported as the oldest painted wall plaster found in Cyprus.¹³ In 1979 the part of the temple under a modern road, since diverted, was cleared; the Archaic-Classical phase had almost disappeared, destroyed largely under Ptolemy I.¹⁴

The tenth campaign, in August and September 1980, completed the sector near the Royal Tombs. The temple's destruction came in two stages, from the Ionian revolt to Ptolemy I, and under Ptolemy I the Cybele sanctuary was rebuilt with a water channel. A large open space with a wooden stoa lay between the public buildings and the city wall. Finds included a headless limestone statuette of Cybele and her two lions, 13.5 cm high, a statue of Artemis and a sphinx-borne incense burner.³ Buchholz, Matthäus and Walcher and Matthäus give the span of the mission as 1970 to 1981, while Recke speaks of annual campaigns until 1980.^4,6,15

Publication

Buchholz, Matthäus and Walcher describe the work as having laid foundations for a final publication of the Royal Tombs and his other investigations.⁶ The first volume of the final publication, on the necropolises of the Politiko region except the Royal Tombs, appeared in 2010, according to Matthäus.¹⁵ Further volumes were close to completion or well advanced in 2012, to be edited by Matthäus (Royal Tombs) and Recke (sanctuaries outside the city).⁴ A Department of Antiquities notice of 21 July 2022 stated that Tomb 5 at the archaeological site of Tamassos would stay closed to the public for one month for scheduled conservation works.¹⁶