The news, week by week

Week 20: 11–17 May 2026

2 pieces·6 places

The Department of Antiquities reported two 2025 field seasons on 11 May: an American excavation of a Chalcolithic cemetery at Makounta, near Polis Chrysochous, and a Belgian-led survey of copper slag and buried features in the countryside behind Hala Sultan Tekke. Classical Philology reviewed Bernard Knapp's book on Cyprus and Ugarit.

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In it:Fieldwork Books

Places in the week's news

Fieldwork· 18 OctNew

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.

A loop of small white disc beads threaded on a wire with a larger round bead and a flat perforated disc, on a black background above a 10 cm scale, with a paper label reading MV765 — Beads from one of the two Makounta tombs that still held grave goods.Department of Antiquities, Cyprus · The week's issue →

A long low mound of black slag partly covered by dry grass and shrubs on a hillside, under a clear blue sky, with a small scale marker in the middle — One of the ancient slag heaps recorded at Pyrga.Department of Antiquities, Cyprus · The week's issue →

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The Carver of Souskiou

Be a carver at Souskiou, in the west of Cyprus, about 3200 BC. Make your own tools from chert, carve a pendant and a cross-shaped figure from a soft blue-green stone called picrolite, and string them into a necklace with tusk shells from the beach. Then follow your pieces through their whole life: worn for years, mended, buried, and found again five thousand years later. Every step opens with a photo of a real object from a museum.

How soft picrolite was carved with harder stones: chert to cut and drill, dolerite to grind
How a worn hole turns pear-shaped, and how broken figures were mended
What a looted piece loses that an excavated one keeps

In this week's newsTen rock-cut tombs, most of them Chalcolithic, excavated beside a prehistoric village near Polis

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