The news, week by week
77 pieces·24 places
21 events14 fieldwork14 jobs & funding12 research11 museums2 heritage crime2 people1 book
Events· Feature· 20 Oct
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.
Books · New book · 20 Oct
Fieldwork
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.
· Nicosia
The Department of Antiquities wants an office, kitchen, sitting room, storerooms and two WCs built at the site within two months; offers close on 10 November 2026.
· Limassol
In a 2015 season without digging, the University of Sydney theatre team also joined over 2,000 pole photographs into a 3D model of the theatre.
· Paphos
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.
· Dali
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.
· Cairo
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.
· Limassol
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.
· Larnaca
Divers have found more than 30 Early Bronze Age jars, some probably made in the Jordan Valley, at a wreck site where no timber of the hull survives.
The 2026 season at ancient Šamuḫa in central Turkey brings the royal archive from the reign of Tudhaliya II to 184 tablets and fragments.
· Ankara
Excavators at Bayraklı Höyük in Izmir have also traced three phases of mortarless city wall, dated to the 9th, 8th and 7th centuries BCE.
· Izmir
The channel, refitted with clay pipes under the Ottomans, ran 21 km from Solomon's Pools to the Temple Mount and will be kept at the entrance of a planned neighbourhood.
· Jerusalem
The American Center of Research in Amman is dating sediment from 'Ain az-Zara in Jordan by luminescence, using samples taken in 2023, with more due this October.
· Amman
Research
SOPHIA-DN, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie doctoral network on premodern ceramics, starts in March 2027; its 15 doctoral posts are due to be advertised on EURAXESS for recruitment that autumn.
· Nicosia
The 2014 ASOR report on 100 ha of coast near Larnaca, from an Iron Age sanctuary to a Late Roman town, links its text to the survey units, finds and pottery types on Open Context.
Two Hungarian Assyriologists date the engraved bowl to 710–675 BCE and tie its siege scene to Assyrian wars in Cyprus or Cilicia.
Dr. Alaa Jabbar Jani's study names Thrace and Cyprus as timber suppliers to Themistocles' fleet; Cypriot kings sent 150 ships against it in 480 BCE.
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.
Once named Christiane Schulte, the Liberian-registered cargo ship ran aground in February 1972; an RAF helicopter lifted seven crew to safety.
· Karpas
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.
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.
Co-director Maria Hadjigavriel describes the open days, pottery-washing volunteers and village evenings of the Leiden excavation in a paper for the Association of Cypriot Archaeologists.
Museums
Manchester Museum withdrew the mummified Asru in September, and DCMS is reviewing its 2005 guidance on human remains, with new rules due in autumn 2027.
· Glasgow
Christodoulides and the Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman also plan to meet the bicommunal Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage before 29 October.
· Nicosia
The Haunted Museum family evening runs 4–7pm. Ahead of it the museum is showing a 13th-century BCE clay sealing of a winged griffin demon from Tell Fakhariyah in Syria.
· Chicago
Deputy Minister Clea Papaellina and French Culture Minister Catherine Pégard signed it in Paris, on a visit whose programme also listed UNESCO and the Louvre.
· Paris
Three specialists from the Greek Ministry of Culture spent 23–25 September 2026 in Cyprus and ran a seminar for Cypriot officials on teaching with heritage.
· Nicosia
Her essay traces the old museum back to a letter Kitchener wrote to the Cyprus Herald in May 1882, and its building to a design by Nikolaos Balanos.
· Nicosia
The curators led the first public tour on 3 October; the next is set for International Museum Day in May 2027, and more are being considered.
· Nicosia
Events
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.
· Paphos
The International Festival of Ancient Greek Drama began in Paphos, Agathi Savvidou says, yet the odeion falls short of what large modern productions need.
· Paphos
Heritage crime
Painted pottery of the 8th–4th centuries BCE and a small bronze female figure were handed over at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens on 13 October.
· Athens
People
The American scholar and patron died on 12 October. In Cyprus he backed excavations at Pyla and Maroni and the final publication of the Kouklia tombs.
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.
· Nicosia
Also announced this week:20 events and exhibitions →14 jobs, grants and calls →
