Play & learn

Games

Five short games to have fun with, each built around real objects and real excavations. Make a pot as a Cypriot potter did, open an ancient tomb one layer at a time, follow a vase through an old auction catalogue, make cloth with one household across five eras, or carve a picrolite pendant and follow it from the bench to the tomb and the museum case. You will come away knowing a little more about how Cyprus lived, buried its dead and made its things, and how we know.

Free
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Plays in your browser
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5 to 15 minutes each
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Desktop and phone

Game I Make
The Potter’s Workshop
Choose a real piece from the Drakopoulos Collection, then make it again as an ancient Cypriot potter would have: shape it by hand or on the wheel, decorate it, and fire it. There are tips after every step, and a firing where things can go wrong.
What you’ll learn
- Why Red Polished pots were burnished to a shine with a pebble
- How the same red slip can fire red or black, depending on the air in the fire
- Which pots were built by hand and which were thrown on the wheel
Play Potter’s Workshop
About 5 minutes Works on phones
Game II Dig
The Excavation
Excavate four real kinds of Cypriot burial, from a Neolithic house at Khirokitia to a royal tomb at Salamis, one marked area at a time. As each find comes up, see what archaeologists found there and why it matters.
What you’ll learn
- Why the people of Khirokitia buried their dead beneath their own floors
- How a family tomb at Vounous was opened again for each new burial
- What was left in the passage of a royal tomb at Salamis, c. 700 BC
Play Excavation
About 5 minutes Works on phones
Game III Trace
The Paper Trail
Play a provenance researcher. Find the lotus amphora in a real 1926 Sotheby’s catalogue, match it to the right plate, write down the lot number and file the case.
What you’ll learn
- How a 1926 sale catalogue describes a lot and records its buyer
- How to match an object to a catalogue plate, detail by detail
- Why a documented history matters for an antiquity today
Play Paper Trail
About 5 minutes Works on phones
Game IV Weave
Making Cloth
Follow one household's craft through five eras of Cypriot history, from Neolithic Khirokitia to the kingdom of Marion. Scrape and soften a deer skin, ret and spin flax, weave on an upright loom and dye with murex purple. Every step opens with a photo of a real object from a museum, then you try the work yourself.
What you’ll learn
- How a stone scraper and ochre turned a fresh skin into leather
- Why a spindle whorl's weight decides how fine the thread can be
- How an upright loom's clay weights kept the threads taut
Play Making Cloth
About 10 minutes Works on phones
Game V Carve
The Carver of Souskiou
Be a carver at Souskiou, in the west of Cyprus, about 3200 BC. Make your own tools from chert, carve a pendant and a cross-shaped figure from a soft blue-green stone called picrolite, and string them into a necklace with tusk shells from the beach. Then follow your pieces through their whole life: worn for years, mended, buried, and found again five thousand years later. Every step opens with a photo of a real object from a museum.
What you’ll learn
- How soft picrolite was carved with harder stones: chert to cut and drill, dolerite to grind
- How a worn hole turns pear-shaped, and how broken figures were mended
- What a looted piece loses that an excavated one keeps
Play Carver of Souskiou
About 15 minutes Works on phones

The Potter’s Workshop, The Excavation and The Paper Trail draw on pieces in the Drakopoulos Collection. To read more, try the articles or the Compendium.

The Potter’s Workshop

The Excavation

The Paper Trail

Making Cloth

The Carver of Souskiou