This Week in Cypriot Archaeology: 16–22 March 2026

A Cypro-Archaic jug spotted in a British online auction was back in Cypriot hands, and a UNESCO campaign against the trafficking of cultural property opened at Larnaca airport. Members of Parliament toured the building site of the new Archaeological Museum of Cyprus in Nicosia, and the University of Cyprus presented its 2025 fieldwork.

Heritage crime

The Department of Antiquities announced on 17 March that on 7 March a jug had been given back to Cyprus at its High Commission in London. Department officers who track Cypriot antiquities offered for sale on the internet had found it in an online auction, and after the Department consulted the auction house the lot was withdrawn. Painted black over a shiny reddish slip, the round-bodied jug carries groups of concentric circles on each side and bands on its short neck; one handle runs from neck to shoulder, and the rim is missing. It is Black-on-Red III (IV) ware of the Cypro-Archaic I period (750–600 BCE). The Department thanked Watsons Auctioneers and the holders for giving it back voluntarily. Most objects caught by this kind of monitoring are pots of common classes offered by regional or online salerooms, handed over at a Cypriot embassy or high commission.

On 20 March UNESCO opened the European leg of its worldwide campaign to make travellers aware of the illicit trafficking of cultural goods, with posters at Larnaca and Paphos airports. The European Commission supports it, and in Cyprus it was organised with the Deputy Ministry of Culture and the Republic's Permanent Delegation to UNESCO, helped by the Department of Antiquities, the Cyprus National Commission for UNESCO and the airport operator Hermes Airports. Deputy Minister of Culture Vasiliki Kassianidou spoke at the launch in the departures hall of Larnaca's Glafcos Clerides airport, saying Cyprus was honoured to host the European start. Eftychia Zachariou, who chairs the national committee against the looting and illicit trafficking of cultural heritage, was among those present.

Museums

On 19 March Kassianidou took the House Committee on Development Plans and the Control of Public Expenditure round the building site of the new Archaeological Museum of Cyprus in Nicosia, with the Director of Antiquities, Giorgos Georgiou, and the Director of Public Works. Knews reported that the contractors expected to finish the building in the third quarter of 2027, and that officials put the move and installation of the collections at about 18 months more, for an opening in the second half of 2029. Construction had begun in January 2023. Kassianidou said the new museum will cover only earliest prehistory to the Roman period; the old Cyprus Museum, a listed monument, will be kept and used for the periods it leaves out. In September the timetable slipped again (our brief).

Events

On Saturday 21 March the Archaeological Research Unit of the University of Cyprus held a hybrid study day, "The archaeological work of the University of Cyprus, 2025", in Amphitheatre B108 of the Anastasios G. Leventis Council-Senate building on the Nicosia campus, from 9.30am to 6pm, with the sessions also open online on Zoom (listing).