New Central Prisons at Agios Sozomenos to be kept apart from the Bronze Age site

The new Central Prisons at Agios Sozomenos, south of Nicosia, will be planned with a clear separation, in space and in function, from the antiquities, the Ministry of Justice and Public Order announced on 23 September. That day the Minister, Costas Fytiris, and the Deputy Minister of Culture, Clea Papaellina, discussed a preliminary master plan with officials of the Department of Antiquities and the Police.

For now the buildings are being considered for the northern part of the state-owned plot, at a distance from the archaeological site. With the Department, the ministries aim to study works that would improve access and open the remains to more visitors, and the Department will take part in the master plan and the stages after it. Every required planning, environmental and other assessment and permit is still to come.

On a limestone plateau where the Alykos meets the Gialias stand a fortified settlement at Dhali-Kafkallia and the forts of Barsak and Nikolidhes, with a settlement of workshops and a pithos (storage jar) storehouse in the valley below; the group was in use from about 1750 BCE until a destruction in the 12th century BCE [1, pp. 87, 97; 2, p. 14]. The Department surveyed and excavated there from 2012 to 2021.

The meeting also agreed to give part of the former Paphos Gate Police Station in Nicosia to the Police Museum and the rest to the Department, for cultural spaces for artists.