This Week in Cypriot Archaeology: 12–18 October 2026

A coin exhibition opened in Nicosia on 16 October, CAARI called for papers for the centenary of the Swedish Cyprus Expedition, and the death of the archaeologist and benefactor Malcolm Wiener was announced. Earlier in October, two Byzantine icons came back to the Metropolis of Morphou.

Map of Cyprus

This week's stories

• Research
• Books
• People and events
• Ground above 200, 500, 1,000 m

N

50 km

Sites on this map

1. 1Kition
2. 2Kourion
3. 3Galinoporni-Vasili (approx.)
4. 4Kafizin (approx.)
5. 5Tombs of the Kings, Paphos
6. 6Hala Sultan Tekke
7. 7Idalion
8. 8Dhali-Agridhi (approx.)
9. 9Kalopsidha (approx.)
10. 10Maroni
11. 11Pyla (approx.)
12. 12Kalavasos-Tenta

Museums

At the Leventis Municipal Museum of Nicosia, "Messages on Metal. A timeless dialogue with Cyprus" opened on 16 October and runs until 10 January 2027. Its 136 coins, from the ancient kings to Catherine Cornaro, come from the museum and from the Alpha Bank Numismatic Collection, part of which the organisers say is shown in Cyprus for the first time.

Aphrodite: The Making of a Goddess opened at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford on 8 October and runs until 11 April 2027. Curated by Dr Anja Ulbrich and sponsored by the A. G. Leventis Foundation, it follows the goddess from Cypriot sanctuaries into the Greek and Roman worlds, with loans from the Department of Antiquities (our brief).

People

The Archaeological Research Unit of the University of Cyprus announced on 14 October that Malcolm Wiener had died at the age of 91. A specialist in the Minoan and Mycenaean civilisations, he founded the Institute for Aegean Prehistory (INSTAP) in Philadelphia, which funded excavations across the eastern Mediterranean, in Cyprus at Pyla and Maroni among others. INSTAP grants also paid for the drawings and photographs in Hector Catling's 2020 publication of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age tombs at Kouklia (Palaepaphos).

Heritage crime

The Metropolis of Morphou announced on 9 October the return of two 14th-century icons of the Evangelists Matthew and Mark, from the church of the Panagia at Asinou. Stolen after the Turkish invasion of 1974 from the palace of the Metropolis of Kyrenia, in the occupied north, they were traced to the United Kingdom, where the Church of Cyprus was recognised as their owner (our brief).

Research

Digital recording in 2024 added 23 possible ship graffiti to those known on the temples at Kition Kathari, mostly on the south façade of Temple 1, according to a study published online in August in The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. The authors argue that ships went on being cut there through the end of the Late Bronze Age and the start of the Iron Age (our brief).

Carved limestone fragments from Latsithkia, in the countryside of Kourion, may come from an unknown temple of the late 1st century CE, four researchers argued in the American Journal of Archaeology in September (our brief).

A lead isotope synthesis of 752 Late Bronze Age copper ingots, in the Journal of Archaeological Science in September, concludes that unmixed Cypriot copper dominated Mediterranean markets, with small amounts from elsewhere.

In a September paper in TEXTILE, Bülent Kızılduman and four co-authors study the cloth wrapped round the 2014 bronze hoard from Galinoporni-Vasili (Kaleburnu-Kral Tepesi), on the Karpas Peninsula in the area occupied by Turkey since the 1974 invasion: at least 111 bronzes in and around a storage jar set in a rock-cut well. They identified 13–15 tabby cloths and several kinds of cord. It was the second hoard from the spot, after one found in a pithos in 2004.

Published on 16 October in The Annual of the British School at Athens, a paper by Giorgos Papantoniou reads the cult of Arsinoe Philadelphus in Ptolemaic Cyprus as a tie between local communities and the Ptolemaic administration, using evidence that includes the inscriptions from Kafizin.

Books

The first volume of the final publication of the Tombs of the Kings excavations at Paphos was presented in Athens on 30 September (our brief).

In Ritual or Refuse?, volume M162 of the SIMA series from Åström Editions with a 2026 date, Teresa Bürge reads the fills of more than 60 pits, wells and tombs that Swedish teams excavated at Hala Sultan Tekke between 2014 and 2022 as deliberate deposits (our brief).

The 1989 report of the American Expedition to Idalion was released as a free PDF in September (roundup of 14–20 September).

Routledge published Ancient and Preindustrial Ceramics from Cyprus in September, edited by Sergios Menelaou and Edyta Marzec. In one chapter, Laura Gagné argues that small, rough pots from Kalopsidha that Paul Åström assigned to two styles were painted by children imitating the Cross Line Style.

Events

CAARI, the Archaeological Research Unit and the Department of Antiquities have issued a call for papers for a conference in Nicosia on 14–16 October 2027, marking a hundred years since the Swedish Cyprus Expedition began work. Abstracts are due by 31 October 2026 at librarian@caari.org.cy.

On 5 November at 7pm, Dr Anna Reeve of the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London, lectures at CAARI on how Cypriot antiquities reached British museums. On 7 November at 5pm, an evening in the village museum at Kalavasos remembers Ian Todd; Alison South speaks about the Vasilikos Valley Project, whose digs included Tenta.