One-day Nicosia workshop on 12 December traces Cyprus's first pottery, Neolithic to Chalcolithic

The earliest pottery made on Cyprus is the subject of a one-day workshop at the University of Cyprus in Nicosia on Saturday 12 December 2026. Its title is Early Ceramic Traditions in Cyprus and Beyond: Technology, Practice and Society from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic, and it runs from 09:00 to 18:00.

The organisers are Prof. Ourania Kouka and Dr Sergios Menelaou. They hold the meeting as part of NeoChalCY, a programme whose full name, "Of Earth and Fire", sets out to trace where ceramic technology and innovation began on the Neolithic and Chalcolithic island, using an interdisciplinary approach. The Archaeological Research Unit carries the workshop in its winter 2026 lecture programme. Sessions are in Room LRC 019 of the Stelios Ioannou Central Library and Learning Center on the university's new campus. The unit says it will publish further details, and a Zoom link, closer to the day.

Pottery came late to Cyprus. Villages of the Aceramic Neolithic such as Khirokitia managed without it, and the first Cypriot pots appear only after a gap of roughly a thousand years in the radiocarbon record. The wares that followed, c. 5200 to 2400 BCE, are set out on our page on Neolithic and Chalcolithic wares: combed red pottery in the south in the time of the Sotira culture, named after the Neolithic village of Sotira-Teppes, painted Red-on-White in the north, and later the Red Monochrome Painted ware found at Kissonerga and other Chalcolithic villages. Menelaou co-edited this year's Routledge volume on ancient and preindustrial ceramics from Cyprus.