This Week in Cypriot Archaeology: 12–18 January 2026

Alain Le Brun and Odile Daune-Le Brun, the French couple who have excavated Neolithic Khirokitia for half a century, received Cyprus's award for archaeological heritage on 12 January, its first presentation since Vassos Karageorghis received it in 2011. Later in the week the Department of Antiquities postponed an evening of events at the Cyprus Museum and closed the Limassol museum for a day.

Map of Cyprus

This week's stories

• Award
• Museums
• Ground above 200, 500, 1,000 m

N

50 km

Sites on this map

1. 1Khirokitia
2. 2Cape Andreas-Kastros
3. 3Cyprus Museum, Nicosia (approx.)
4. 4Limassol District Museum (approx.)

Events

President Nikos Christodoulides handed the Award for the Preservation and Promotion of the Archaeological Heritage of Cyprus to Alain Le Brun and Odile Daune-Le Brun on the evening of 12 January, at a Deputy Ministry of Culture event in the Pallas Theatre, Nicosia. The government had decided to revive the award after 14 years, and the ceremony formed part of the 90th anniversary of the Department of Antiquities, the Deputy Ministry announced the next day. The president called it a sign "of gratitude for their long and valuable contribution to our country" (our translation).

The couple have led the French excavation of the Neolithic village of Khirokitia for the past 50 years. According to the Deputy Ministry, they worked with the Department on the site's management plan, took a leading part in building its experimental Neolithic houses and its school programmes, and did much to win it a place on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The committee's citation, read by its chair, Professor Emerita Maria Iacovou of the University of Cyprus, went back to their work before 1974. The Turkish invasion that year cut them off from Cape Andreas-Kastros, a Neolithic site at the far end of the Karpas peninsula that Le Brun had excavated from 1970 to 1973. They stayed in Cyprus, and they studied and published what they had recovered there; the committee noted that the site, now out of reach in the occupied north, has since been destroyed by the Turkish occupation army. Many people from the village of Khirokitia came to the ceremony.

In his speech the president listed the five earlier holders, two of them institutions: the Swedish Cyprus Expedition in 2006 and the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation in 2008.

Museums

The evening planned for Saturday 17 January at the Cyprus Museum, with a presentation of the upgraded permanent exhibition and guided tours marking Cyprus's presidency of the Council of the European Union, was postponed after public mourning was declared for the former President of the Republic, Giorgos Vassiliou. The Department said a new date would follow.

The Department also closed the Limassol District Museum to visitors on 16 January for emergency maintenance.