Today's news

Fieldwork

Karavas churches of 1804 and 1854 restored by Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot conservators

Ayia Irini and Ayios Georgios of Mezere, in the occupied north, were conserved with EU and village funds; the cemetery at Kalopsida has also been restored.

Museums

€1.6m redesign will strengthen Kourion's 1937 museum house at Episkopi against earthquakes

The works are part of a project estimated at €2.6m for the museum, which shows a family killed when an earthquake destroyed Roman Kourion. It has been shut since 1 August.

Fieldwork

Iconostasis and monk-painted walls restored at the monastery of Saint Barnabas near Salamis

The EU-funded work by the bicommunal Technical Committee also repaired the church roof at the shrine of the apostle, in the occupied north of Cyprus.

Research

Famagusta's Lusignan walls have lost far more stone to sea salt than its Venetian walls, study finds

A French team finds the same limestone in both phases of Famagusta's walls and credits the Venetians' thicker, earth-backed walls and broad mortar joints for their slower decay.

Museums

Cyprus's draft 2027 budget cuts antiquities development spending by 43%, to €3.8m

The Department of Antiquities' total falls only 4%, to €23.6m, but its project money drops from €6.68m. Its director told MPs the squeeze will have a price.

Fieldwork·In brief

Works at the Paphos lighthouse uncover a Roman cistern, pebble floor and water channel

The Department of Antiquities has restored the old keepers' houses at the Paphos lighthouse; pottery dates the water works found round the tower to the 1st–2nd century CE.

Museums·In brief

3D reconstructions and AI scenes planned for Kourion, including contests at its Roman stadium

The Limassol Tourism Board, with the Deputy Ministry of Tourism, is preparing 3D reconstructions of Kourion’s monuments as they stood at their height.

Research·In brief

Network study of 299,171 km of Roman roads puts Byzantium and Antioch ahead of Rome

Timing each road for a walker, an Aarhus-led team finds the Empire's most central overland path ran from Lepcis Magna via Antioch and Byzantium to Narbo.

Museums

Two artists, one a plastic surgeon, show new work among the Cyprus Museum's antiquities before its move

With What Remains, curated by Cristina Anglada, opens on 6 November with work by Andreas Mallouris and Leontios Toumpouris; entry is free until 31 January 2027.

Fieldwork

Excavators near Kophinou find a domed church of the 8th–10th centuries and a potters' clay tank

The University of Cyprus team traced four building phases at Agios Herakleios, from an Early Byzantine basilica to a post-16th-century chapel, in a cemetery used from the 6th to the 16th century.

Museums·In brief

Relics from the History Museum of Armenia go on show at Nicosia's Byzantine Museum until April

Faith and Identity, a six-month loan exhibition from Yerevan, opened on 9 October at the Archbishop Makarios III Foundation, with Armenian heritage pieces held in Cyprus.

Fieldwork·In brief

A dog's paw prints survive on a 4,000-year-old mudbrick from a burnt house at Tavşanlı Höyük

The brick, pressed by a dog while still soft, once stood in the wall of a Bronze Age house in western Türkiye that later burned down, Türkiye's culture minister said.

Fieldwork

Hexagonal church of Apsinthiotissa and Byzantine Agios Prokopios restored in the occupied north

The bicommunal Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage handed over the two churches on 23 October; it has now restored more than 210 religious monuments across Cyprus.

Fieldwork·In brief

Bronze Age Pyla-Kokkinokremos, beside a British firing range, will not open to visitors

The minister told MPs the walls are too scant for visitors to read; the two Cypro-Minoan tablets found there are on show in the Larnaca District Museum.

Museums

Cyprus turns to the Louvre for its new Nicosia museum and discusses exchanging antiquities

Deputy Minister Clea Papaellina met Louvre president Christophe Leribault in Paris, following up the Cyprus at the Louvre exhibition of the EU presidency.

Heritage crime

Family returns five Cypriot antiquities acquired in the 1950s to Cyprus's ambassador in Sweden

Bengt Widehag's relatives chose to give the pieces back; Thomas Rydén of the auction house Crafoord Auktioner handed them to Ambassador Doros Venezis on 22 October.

Fieldwork·In brief

Idalion excavators fixed points by RTK, 3D-scanned a statue fragment and logged finds in OCHRE

A student on the 2026 American Expedition to Idalion describes the digital kit run by associate director Andrew Wright, from a daily RTK base station to an Artec 3D scanner.

Fieldwork·In brief

Rescue dig in the Nile Delta finds a 1.6-metre head of Ramesses II

The head, found at Behbeit el-Hagar after a villager reported an inscribed stone, may come from a statue about 8.5 m tall; a second colossus lay nearby.

Fieldwork

Late Bronze Age tower found on the city wall of Palaepaphos, near Aphrodite's sanctuary

A University of Athens team traced a bastion that was enlarged into a tower of about 7.4 by 7.3 metres on the wall at Marcello, Kouklia, in August and September 2026.

Fieldwork·In brief

Ochre working, a hearth and a second round building found at Chalcolithic Erimi-Pamboula

The University of Athens dug at the 5,000-year-old village near Limassol from 25 June to 24 July 2026, close to where Porphyrios Dikaios excavated in 1933–35.

Fieldwork·In brief

Swedish team reaches Hala Sultan Tekke's earliest town levels, of the 17th–15th centuries BCE

In City Quarter 1 the 2026 season found buildings and pottery from the Middle to Late Bronze Age transition, with Anatolian imports but no Aegean pottery yet.

Events·In brief

Lemba Archaeological Project marks 50 years with tributes to its founder, Edgar Peltenburg

The Director of Antiquities and fellow archaeologists spoke at the research centre named after Peltenburg in the village north of Paphos where his project began in 1976.

Research·In brief

Silver bowl from Amathus may carry the earliest known picture of a hoplite phalanx

Two Hungarian Assyriologists date the engraved bowl to 710–675 BCE and tie its siege scene to Assyrian wars in Cyprus or Cilicia.

Fieldwork·In brief

131 more Hittite tablets from Kayalıpınar record a royal infant's death and a plea for chariots

The 2026 season at ancient Šamuḫa in central Turkey brings the royal archive from the reign of Tudhaliya II to 184 tablets and fragments.

Research·In brief

Two Jerusalem toilets of the 7th–6th century BCE held Giardia, a diarrhoea parasite

Laboratory tests reported by Piers D. Mitchell add a microscopic parasite to the whipworm, tapeworm, roundworm and pinworm eggs found earlier at the House of Ahiel and Armon HaNatziv.

Research

Wine jars from Gaul and fish-sauce jars from Sicily reached ancient Cyprus, five free papers report

A wreck off Protaras, the Paphos agora and 3rd-century Kition tableware, in RCRF Acta papers of 2010–2024 now free to download from Archaeopress.

Research

At least 40 roof tiles lay in rows under fallen stone on the Amathus acropolis, report shows

Anna Cannavò's report on the 2025 season on the west terrace dates the collapse over them to Late Antiquity, probably the same 6th–7th century CE phase as the nearby basilica.

Events·In brief

Paphos councillor wants the Roman odeion upgraded to stage large drama productions

The International Festival of Ancient Greek Drama began in Paphos, Agathi Savvidou says, yet the odeion falls short of what large modern productions need.

Research·In brief

Giovanni Mariti watched ancient Kition being dismantled for 1760s Larnaca, a 2013 study recounts

Luca Bombardieri's open-access paper follows the Florentine merchant and British consulate chancellor through six years in Ottoman Cyprus, from Kition's ruins to the island's wines.

Research·In brief

Cyprus's endemic mouse and the house mouse differ in jaw and molar shape, 3D study finds

The introduced house mouse lives off human food and Mus cypriacus has a wider wild diet; a Journal of Anatomy paper compares their jaws and molars in 3D.

People·In brief

University of Cyprus History and Archaeology department marks 30 years on 4 November

Everyone who has studied or taught in the department, past or present, is invited to a 7.30pm reception at the Ceremonial Hall on the Old Campus in Nicosia.

Events·Feature

Leiden hosts PoCA 2026, the 23rd Postgraduate Cypriot Archaeology Meeting, on 11–13 November

Thirty-four researchers from 21 institutions give 32 papers and posters; entry is free, in person or on Zoom, and Artemis Georgiou of the University of Cyprus gives the keynote.

Museums

Department of Antiquities plans to digitise 100,000 more objects from state museum storerooms

Eight archaeologists on 42-month contracts are to enter the finds in its CADiP database. A first round put more than 87,000 objects into it in 2021–2024.

Events

Pylon exhibition in Limassol traces the Episkopi men J. Lawrence Angel measured in 1949

Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert found the families of 57 men from J. Lawrence Angel's 1949 research at Episkopi; her show runs until 19 December.

Books·New book

Jennifer Webb's forthcoming book studies 3,327 Early and Middle Bronze Age metal finds from Cyprus

The SIMA monograph, in press with Astrom Editions, comes with an open database at the University of Cyprus and handheld XRF analyses of 768 copper-base objects.

Jennifer M. Webb · Astrom Editions · 2026

Research

Wheat traces at Chlorakas-Palloures question the view that cereals were minor in Chalcolithic Cyprus

Phytoliths from 25 soil samples at the village north of Paphos point to wheat as its main cereal, though the charred seeds are mostly figs, lentils and pistachio.

Books·New book

Children painted some 'crude' Bronze Age pots at Kalopsidha, new book on Cypriot ceramics argues

Sixteen studies edited by Sergios Menelaou and Edyta Marzec run from metal-imitating prehistoric pots to the workshops that supplied Ottoman Nicosia.

Edited by Sergios Menelaou and Edyta Marzec · Routledge · 2026

Research

Strabo's Arsinoe near Palaepaphos probably never existed, argues study of a Ptolemaic queen's cult

Giorgos Papantoniou argues that the cult of Arsinoe II tied Cypriot towns and sanctuaries to Ptolemaic rule, down to a tithe-collector's pots at the Kafizin grotto.

Research

Charred barley and chaff in a Pyla shaft point to stored animal fodder around 1200 BCE

Of 15,134 plant remains from Pyla-Kokkinokremos, 99% came from one rock-cut shaft, which the authors read as an animal-fodder store later given up.

Fieldwork

Hellenistic quarry under Paphos's Fabrika hill became an unused tomb, then a church

Chamber 5, one of 15 rock-cut spaces on the hill, was probably abandoned before any burial once the new city wall took Fabrika into the town.

Museums

Nicosia's €144m new Cyprus Museum will not be delivered before 2028, MPs told

MPs heard the building had been expected by 3 February 2027; the chair of the House education committee said the public may not get in until 2030.

Research

Bronze Age tombs at Hala Sultan Tekke held what may be burnt bouquets of grain and wild flowers

Jugs in Tomb SS held barley, wheat, marigold and mallow burnt together; two other graves held barley, olive and grape left as food, a study in Levant reports.

Research

48 carved stones near Kourion may come from an unknown Roman temple, study argues

Capitals, column bases and an altar recorded on a hill at Latsithkia in 1997 may belong to a temple of the late 1st century CE, four researchers argue.

Museums

Aphrodite at the Ashmolean: Cyprus lends a sanctuary figurine of a woman giving birth

The Oxford exhibition runs from 8 October 2026 to 11 April 2027 and follows the goddess through more than 150 objects, from Cyprus to contemporary art and fashion.

Books·New book

Bronze Age wells and pits at Hala Sultan Tekke were filled on purpose, new book argues

Teresa Bürge's study of more than 60 features dug in 2014–2022 finds figurines, seals and imports from Egypt to Sardinia in fills unlike household refuse.

Teresa Bürge · Åström Editions · 2026

Research

Laser scans find 23 more possible ships carved on a Bronze Age temple at Kition

Nine of the 23 additions are rated certain; the authors argue ships were cut into Temple 1 for perhaps 300 years, from about 1200 BCE into the Early Iron Age.

Books·New book

New Tombs of the Kings volume centres on the Paphos tomb linked to Ptolemy, king of Cyprus

Sophocles Hadjisavvas, who began digging the Paphos cemetery in 1977, publishes the 1977–1981 seasons; the Ministry ties Tomb 8 to Ptolemy of Cyprus (80–58 BCE).

Sophocles Hadjisavvas · Department of Antiquities, Cyprus · 2026

Heritage crime

Two 14th-century Asinou icons stolen after the 1974 invasion return to Cyprus from Britain

The Evangelists Matthew and Mark, taken from the Metropolis palace in Kyrenia, were traced to the UK and handed back to the Church without payment.

Fieldwork·In brief

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

The prison buildings are being considered for the north of the state plot, and works with the Department of Antiquities would make the antiquities easier to visit.

Fieldwork

Hollows cut into a Bronze Age threshold at Erimi match a senet game board

The University of Siena's 2026 season at Erimi-Laonin tou Porakou exposed the full plan of a 250 m² courtyard building and dug three late Middle Bronze Age chamber tombs.

Fieldwork

Grape seeds and unfired loom weights found in Bronze Age work complex at Erimi-Pitharka

The April–May dig near Limassol traced more rooms of the building, among them one at least 7 by 4.30 m with benches, a press weight and a deposit of raw clay.

Fieldwork

2026 dig at Kissonerga-Skalia adds to the case for Bronze Age beer, Akamas municipality says

Lindy Crewe's CAARI team closed its season at the village north of Paphos, where a 4 m oven yielded charred wheat and terebinth in 2025.

Research

Teeth of 229 people buried at Hellenistic and Roman Paphos show more gum disease than decay

A study of two cemeteries finds more dental disease among the dead of Ktima, the upper town, than in the Eastern Necropolis outside the walls of the ancient city.

Heritage crime

Cyprus brings home 25 antiquities spotted in online auctions abroad, among them a chariot model

The objects came back in eight handovers in France, Britain, the United States and Canada between December 2025 and June 2026, six of them after auction houses withdrew the lots.

Heritage crime

Greece returns 48 Cypriot antiquities an ambassador acquired on the island in the 1960s and 1970s

Pottery and limestone figurines from the Early Bronze Age to the medieval period, given up by the heirs of Christos Zacharakis, were handed over at the Cyprus Museum on 1 June.

Fieldwork

French team traces a 2 m-thick Late Roman wall, probably defensive, on the Amathus acropolis

Fallen roof tiles covered a tiled floor east of the wall, and a trench above an Archaic fortification yielded Iron Age figurines and pottery.

Fieldwork

More than 20 statue bases, some still bearing feet, found in place at Frangissa's Apollo sanctuary

Terracotta feet on some of the limestone bases are the first sign in Cyprus that clay figures were given stone pedestals, the Department of Antiquities said.

Research

Pigeons at Bronze Age Hala Sultan Tekke were semi-domesticated by 1400 BCE, study argues

Bones of at least 55 rock doves from the harbour town on the Larnaca Salt Lake carry nitrogen values close to those of people, a paper in Antiquity reports.

Fieldwork

Ten rock-cut tombs, most of them Chalcolithic, excavated beside a prehistoric village near Polis

Only two of the graves at Makounta-Voules/Mersinoudia still held objects: beads of shell, picrolite, faience and quartz in one, copper spirals and wire in the other.

Books·New book

Cyprus's first Director of Antiquities was sacked within a year; his memoir is now in print

John R. Hilton wrote up his 1934–36 posting some forty years later from family letters. Nicholas Stanley-Price has edited it for Archaeopress.

John R. Hilton · Archaeopress · 2025

Research

Paddling 60 km round the Akamas matched carrying loads 31 km overland, Chalcolithic model finds

Per kilo and kilometre, canoes used under 10 kJ against 20–50 kJ on foot between Chlorakas-Palloures and Makounta-Voules, two villages that traded storage jars.

Research

Bull and ibex gold diadems from Hala Sultan Tekke tombs were probably made on Cyprus, study argues

Nine diadems and two mouth-pieces from Late Bronze Age family tombs mix Egyptian, Aegean and Near Eastern motifs; the heavier ones show wear from use in life.

Fieldwork

Stone-knapping floor found in place at Akamas coastal site used at least 8,000 years ago

The October 2025 season at Drouseia-Skloinikia also yielded beads and worked bone and shell, and divers began surveying a reef that was dry land when the site was in use.

Fieldwork

Crucibles made from amphora bases point to metalworking in Hellenistic Nea Paphos

A Rhodian amphora handle of about 117 BCE dates the rooms at Maloutena; in the agora the Polish team found a settling basin and part of an older colonnade.

Fieldwork

Two Late Bronze Age tombs at Hala Sultan Tekke held Baltic amber and Afghan lapis lazuli

Used by families for generations, two tomb chambers of about the 14th century BCE near Larnaca were sealed by fallen roofs and held pottery from Crete, Greece and Sardinia.

Fieldwork

Drone photos record about 70 looted chamber tombs near Amargeti in the Paphos hills

A University of Graz survey in October 2025 also picked up a Middle Cypriot jug handle, a gaming stone and Roman pottery around the village.

Fieldwork

Horse and bull figurines mark an Iron Age sanctuary near a Roman copper slag heap in the Troodos

In 2025 the Copenhagen and Uppsala Life at the Furnace team also excavated plastered basins and cisterns on three terraces at Agia Marina Xyliatou-Mavrovouni.

Fieldwork

Over 700 kg of broken jars levelled the rock for a harbour serving Justinian's basilicas at Pegeia

New York University's 2025 season near Pegeia recorded 68 red-ink inscriptions on the 6th-century jars and studied a Hellenistic and Roman rock-cut tomb.