Kazimierz Michałowski

In late May and early June 1965, Kazimierz Michałowski opened four trial trenches at Kato Paphos on ground the Department of Antiquities had placed at the disposal of the Polish mission of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology in Cairo. The trenches gave six strata, a hoard of 13 silver coins of Alexander and Philip Arrhidaeus on the floor of the earliest house, a Hellenistic drain and, in a Roman villa, marble sculptures of Asklepios, Artemis and a Satyr⁴. Kyriakos Nicolaou recorded the work as the mission's first excavation at "Malloutena", on the north side of the rise behind the medieval castle².

Michałowski was born at Tarnopol on 14 December 1901 and studied at Lwow, Berlin, Heidelberg, Münster, Paris and Rome. He became professor at Warsaw in 1930, dug in Egypt at Deir el-Medina and Edfu, and later at Mirmekion in Crimea, Tell Atrib, Palmyra, Alexandria and Faras. The Cairo Centre dates from 1959, and his obituary says Polish archaeology turned to Cyprus, Iraq and Sudan under his impulse¹.

Seasons followed in May and June of 1966 and 1967, with a house with two mosaic levels and then a large public-looking building, and Wiktor Andrzej Daszewski in charge in Michałowski's absence^3,5. Nicolaou's reports for 1968 to 1970 still name both men as leaders, with the University of Warsaw and the National Museum as sponsors, and the 1969 season found the Theseus mosaic^8,9,10. By 1984 Maier and Vassos Karageorghis described the excavations as under Daszewski's direction¹¹. Michałowski died at Podkowa Leśna on 1 January 1981¹.