II · The registers · The tomb register
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The tomb register records every excavated tomb on Cyprus: its architecture, its burials and everything found in it, read from the excavation reports and cited to the page, and the museums where its finds are now. Where the report printed a plan, the tomb’s page draws it, in our own plans drawn only from the published drawings.
The register follows the publications, so the decades whose reports we are still reading look thinner than the digging was. Its data is published under CC BY-NC 4.0.
Bellapais-Vounous · Tomb 11
Kourion-Kaloriziki · Tomb 23
Bellapais-Vounous · Tomb 35
Marion · Tomb 96
Kourion-Kaloriziki · Tomb 35
Bellapais-Vounous · Tomb 5The atlas
Each circle is a place, sized by its tombs. Filter by period, by the type of tomb and by how the tomb is recorded; choose a decade, or play through them, to see where the digging was; choose a place to list its tombs, each with a link to its page.
The decades are those in which each excavation began. Tombs whose reports we have not yet read are missing from them, so the bars show the register as it stands today. The 3 tombs whose place is not recorded are left off the map.
What is in it
3,585 tombs at 254 places, dug by 223 excavations between the 1880s and the 2010s. 2,365 are recorded from their own excavation report; the other 1,220 are known from what later publications say about them, and a further 617 only by name. Between them the reports catalogue 32,440 objects, 23,575 of them vessels, and describe 2,101 burials.
A tomb counts under the earliest period its record gives. The last four columns are shares of the tombs with a catalogue, shown where a period has ten or more: how many held at least one object of metal, of gold, or made overseas.
| Period | Tombs | From its report | Catalogued | Objects, median | With metal | With gold | With imports |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Neolithic9000–3900 BC | 1 | 1 | 0 | – | – | – | – |
| Chalcolithic3900–2400 BC | 107 | 105 | 65 | 3 | 2% | 0% | 0% |
| Early Bronze Age2400–1950 BC | 163 | 113 | 89 | 5 | 27% | 2% | 1% |
| Middle Bronze Age1950–1650 BC | 117 | 93 | 51 | 7 | 47% | 2% | 12% |
| Late Bronze Age1650–1050 BC | 239 | 190 | 132 | 12 | 59% | 29% | 48% |
| Cypro-Geometric1050–750 BC | 262 | 229 | 189 | 16 | 66% | 22% | 33% |
| Cypro-Archaic750–480 BC | 343 | 304 | 191 | 2 | 44% | 6% | 16% |
| Cypro-Classical480–310 BC | 140 | 131 | 91 | 12 | 57% | 16% | 35% |
| Hellenistic310–30 BC | 113 | 104 | 44 | 2 | 43% | 25% | 5% |
| Roman30 BC–AD 330 | 43 | 38 | 13 | 8 | 54% | 31% | 15% |
391 more tombs carry a date in the report’s own words that we have not yet matched to a period, 21 are dated only to a broad age such as “Bronze Age”, and 1,645 have no date in the register yet.
The register names cemeteries as their reports do, so Amathus and its necropoleis count separately.
2,161 tombs have no type in their record yet.
Museum records that name the tomb an object came from, 8,389 of them matched to their entry in the report. Most finds from the Department of Antiquities’ own excavations stayed in Cyprus, so this list shows where the finds sent abroad went.
Objects in the catalogues of the tombs read from their reports, by kind.
Questions
Each answer is counted from the register when this page is built, so it changes as more reports are read.
Kazaphani-Ayios Andronikos, Nicolaou Tomb 2, with 1,226 objects in its report's catalogue. Next come Lapithos-Vrysi tou Barba, SCE Tomb 322 (343) and Enkomi, SCE Tomb 3 (327).
Kazaphani-Ayios Andronikos, Nicolaou Tomb 2 →Lapithos-Vrysi tou Barba, SCE Tomb 322 →Enkomi, SCE Tomb 3 →
Ayios Iakovos-Melia, SCE Tomb 8: the report counts 62 individuals. Next is Episkopi-Bamboula, Penn Tomb 19, with 52. A count is given for 475 tombs.
Ayios Iakovos-Melia, SCE Tomb 8 →Episkopi-Bamboula, Penn Tomb 19 →
Enkomi, SCE Tomb 3, with 95 gold objects; next is Kourion-Ayios Ermoyenis, Penn Tomb 8, with 85. Gold was found in 219 of the 1,364 tombs with a catalogue.
Of the catalogued tombs, 2% of the Early Bronze Age ones held gold and 1% an imported object; in the Late Bronze Age, 29% held gold and 48% an import. The table above gives every period with ten or more catalogued tombs (9 of them).
Where the report says either way, 71 of 254 tombs had been robbed in antiquity, wholly or in part, and 51 of 240 in modern times. Most reports do not say, and the register records that as not reported.
The reports give a posture for 588 of the dead: extended supine 304, flexed 95, contracted 81, and 108 in other positions. Sex is reported for 477.
The British Museum, with objects from 354 tombs. Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm holds the most objects: 6,650, from 231 tombs. These are the museum records that name their tomb; most finds from the Department of Antiquities' own excavations stayed in Cyprus.
The register holds 167 tombs from one excavation, Amathus: the British Museum (Turner Bequest) excavation, more than from any other. Altogether the tombs come from 223 excavations at 254 places.
For questions of your own, the Tomb Explorer filters the register by period, site, ware, shape and burial, with every fact cited to its page in the report.
How it is made
A tomb enters the register because a publication records it: its excavation report, or a later publication that describes it. Museum records are attached to tombs already in the register. Each tomb is filed under the excavation that dug it, because tomb numbers repeat from one excavation to the next: at Enkomi alone the register holds tombs numbered by 4 different excavations.
The report is read entry by entry: the tomb’s architecture and measurements, each burial, each object in the catalogue with its number, size, findspot and page, and the date the excavators gave. Our reading sits beside the report’s own words, in one vocabulary of wares, shapes and periods shared with the catalogue. Where a report is silent, the record says “not reported” rather than “none”; where two publications differ, both readings are kept.
Museum records are joined to the entries they describe. In Stockholm, an inventory number such as L. 313B:002 is Lapithos Tomb 313, chamber B, catalogue number 2. Where the report printed a plan, we draw our own from it: positions, sizes and outlines from the published drawing, line work and lettering ours, each object marked with its catalogue number and linked to its entry.
Reports differ. Some catalogue every object and plot it on a plan; others give a paragraph. Each tomb read from its report is graded on five counts, and its page lists what the report leaves out.
The plans
173 plans of 144 tombs so far, each redrawn from the drawing printed in the report and credited to it. 163 of them mark the finds where they lay, and on the tomb’s page each marked object leads to its catalogue entry. We draw only from published drawings.
Start here
A handful of records that show what the register does: tombs found intact and tombs found robbed, rich catalogues, burials described one by one, and finds followed to the museums that hold them.
Using it
The register’s data is published under CC BY-NC 4.0: you may copy and reuse it with credit, for non-commercial purposes only. For any commercial use, please contact us. Ancient Cyprus is non-commercial and free to use.
Museum photographs are shown only where the museum’s licence allows it, credited to the museum under its own terms, and every museum record links back to the museum’s own page.
Each tomb page gives its own citation, in this form:
“Lapithos-Vrysi tou Barba, SCE Tomb 313.” Ancient Cyprus: Cyprus tomb register. https://www.ancientcyprus.com/tombs/lapithos-sce-1927-313 (version of 2026-11-06).
Please cite the excavation report for its facts; each tomb page gives the page for every one of them.
Museums · The records of where the finds are now come from the published collections of these museums: Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm; British Museum; Penn Museum (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology); Musée du Louvre; Museum Gustavianum, Uppsala; Ashmolean Museum; Cyprus Museum, Nicosia; Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge; John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art; Princeton University Art Museum; National Museum in Warsaw. We are grateful to each of them for making their records public.
Owners · If you own an object that came from one of these tombs, or know where one is now, please contact us. Our advice is confidential, unless the law requires us to share it.
What comes next
The annual reports of the Department of Antiquities and the volumes of the large cemeteries, so that the decades that look thin today fill in, and the tombs now known only by name gain a record.
A plan for every tomb whose report printed one, with each object marked where the drawing shows it.
A written account of the most important tombs, alongside their records.
Open now in a first version, for asking the register your own questions: which tombs held a given ware or shape, how burials changed, where the finds of a cemetery went. It grows with every report read.
