Reconstructions
Ancient Cyprus, Rebuilt from the Evidence
Each reconstruction rebuilds a building, object or place of ancient Cyprus from what excavation has recovered, with images made at the time and experiments that tested how things were made. Each is set out as a report, with plans, sections and elevations drawn as an excavation report would draw them, and most also have a 3D model to walk round, build step by step or take apart.
Throughout, what was excavated is kept apart from what is inferred, reconstructed or guessed: the difference is marked in line on the drawings and in shading on the model. Versions that the evidence rules out are drawn too, in a style of their own.
Featured · Building · Middle Chalcolithic
A Chalcolithic Round House, Layer by Layer
c. 3500–2900 BC · Kissonerga-Mosphilia and Lemba-Lakkous
A middling house of the Middle Chalcolithic, rebuilt from the excavated buildings of Kissonerga and Lemba in the west of the island, from a clay model of a house made at the time, and from the experimental village built at Lemba in the late 1980s. The drawings show it as an excavation report would; the 3D model can be walked round, built step by step and taken apart.
Formats: Measured drawings · 3D model · Build sequence · Guided tour
Catalogue
21 reconstructions, earliest first
Neolithic
About the period →Ship · Aceramic Neolithic
Which boat could carry a cow?
c. 9000–8000 BC · Parekklisha-Shillourokambos
The boats that brought the first farmers, their cattle, sheep, goats and pigs to Cyprus over 70 km of open sea: a ten-metre oak dugout, two logs paired under a deck, and the reed and hide craft that rival them, each loaded and put to sea.
Formats: Measured drawings · 3D model · Build sequence · Guided tour
Settlement · Aceramic Neolithic
A Khirokitia Household
c. 7000–5200 BC · Khirokitia
A cluster of small round rooms around a plastered court, just inside the village wall and its stepped entrance at Khirokitia, with flat roofs of timber, reeds and earth where the old reconstructions put domes.
Formats: Measured drawings · 3D model · Build sequence · Guided tour
Tomb · Aceramic Neolithic
Khirokitia, Tholos III: Burials Under the Floors of a Neolithic House
Khirokitia culture, c. 7000–5200 BC · Khirokitia
One round house at Khirokitia and the six people buried under its ten floors: a young woman under a quern with a hole left in the floor above her, a man under a wall, three burials in one pit, and every object they were given.
Formats: Measured drawings · 3D model · Build sequence · Guided tour
Chalcolithic
About the period →Building · Middle Chalcolithic
A Chalcolithic Round House, Layer by Layer
c. 3500–2900 BC · Kissonerga-Mosphilia and Lemba-Lakkous
A single circular room on a low stone socle, with walls of hand-laid mud and a flat roof of timber, reeds and earth, rebuilt from the excavated houses of Kissonerga and Lemba.
Formats: Measured drawings · 3D model · Build sequence · Guided tour
Tomb · Middle Chalcolithic
Souskiou-Laona Tomb 158: A Chalcolithic Shaft Grave
c. 3000 BC · Souskiou-Laona
A rock-cut shaft grave of about 3000 BC near Souskiou, closed by a capstone and used for nine burials, with the bones of the earlier dead stacked to make room for the next and two necklaces of shell, picrolite, faience and copper kept with them.
Formats: Measured drawings · 3D model · Build sequence · Guided tour
Building · Late Chalcolithic
The Pithos House at Kissonerga
c. 2700–2500 BC · Kissonerga-Mosphilia
A large Late Chalcolithic round house of stone at Kissonerga, burnt with its stores inside: some thirty-seven storage jars, about 4,000 litres, on stands along its walls and loose across its floor.
Formats: Measured drawings · 3D model · Build sequence · Guided tour
Early Bronze Age
About the period →Tomb · Philia to Early Cypriot I–II
A Sealed Chamber Tomb at Sotira-Kaminoudhia, c. 2250 BC
c. 2400–2200 BC · Sotira-Kaminoudhia
A small chamber tomb cut in the chalk at Sotira-Kaminoudhia and found sealed, with one man, four Red Polished pots and a chert flake, rebuilt with its older neighbour Tomb 15, reused for three people and holding a copper-based dagger and a necklace.
Formats: Measured drawings · 3D model · Build sequence · Guided tour
Building · Philia to Middle Cypriot I
The Marki House Through Five Centuries
c. 2400–1800 BC · Marki-Alonia
One plot of ground in the Early Bronze Age village of Marki-Alonia, followed from an open yard shared by two Philia households to a walled house of stone and mudbrick with screened hearths and neighbours on every side.
Formats: Measured drawings · 3D model · Build sequence · Guided tour
Building · Early Cypriot III
A Stone House at Sotira-Kaminoudhia
c. 2300–2200 BC · Sotira-Kaminoudhia
An Early Bronze Age house of three rooms on a hillside above Sotira, built of tabular limestone to the roof and covered with a flat roof of beams, reeds, brush and earth.
Formats: Measured drawings · 3D model · Build sequence · Guided tour
Tomb · Early Cypriot II–III
A Family Tomb at Vounous, c. 2100 BC
c. 2150–2000 BC · Bellapais-Vounous
Bellapais-Vounous Tomb 36 on the north coast, rebuilt from its excavation report: the rock-cut chamber, the 135 objects and the ox laid in it, and the nine people buried there and moved aside to make room for more.
Formats: Measured drawings · 3D model · Build sequence · Guided tour
Middle Bronze Age
About the period →Late Bronze Age
About the period →Cypro-Geometric
About the period →Cypro-Archaic
About the period →Tomb · Cypro-Archaic I
Salamis Tomb 79: A Royal Tomb with Chariots in the Dromos
around 700 BC · Salamis
A royal tomb at Salamis used for two funerals around 700 BC: a small chamber of two stone blocks, a paved porch and a 16.8 m passage holding four vehicles, ten horses, thrones, a bed and a bronze cauldron, with every count marked as excavated or estimated.
Formats: Measured drawings · 3D model · Build sequence · Guided tour
Tomb · Cypro-Archaic II
Tamassos Royal Tomb 12: A Built Stone Tomb of the Sixth Century BC
c. 600–550 BC · Tamassos
A king's tomb at Tamassos, built of dressed limestone in a pit and roofed with two stone slabs, rebuilt with its 83 objects where Ohnefalsch-Richter found them in 1889: one man in a stone sarcophagus, his spits, lamps, cauldrons and weapons, and the robbers who put the door back.
Formats: Measured drawings · 3D model · Build sequence · Guided tour
Cypro-Classical
About the period →Hellenistic
About the period →Tomb · Hellenistic to Roman
A Family Tomb at Kourion: Ayios Ermoyenis Tomb 8, 3rd c. BC to 4th c. AD
3rd c. BC to 4th c. AD · Kourion, Ayios Ermoyenis
A rock-cut family tomb below the Kourion bluff with a roofed stair and two chambers, used from the 3rd century BC to the end of the 1st century AD, cleared for new burials under Augustus, flooded, and buried when its roofs fell in the 4th century AD, rebuilt with its 391 objects and at least 11 people.
Formats: Measured drawings · 3D model · Build sequence · Guided tour
Tomb · Late Hellenistic to Roman
Tombs of the Kings, Tomb 8: A Hellenistic Court Tomb at Nea Paphos
2nd c. BC to 4th c. AD · Nea Paphos, Tombs of the Kings
A court cut round a block of rock in the northern cemetery of Nea Paphos, with a painted colonnade before an empty grave, three graves sealed by its fall in an earthquake, and a Roman half walled off for new burials, rebuilt with its 94 objects and 31 burials.
Formats: Measured drawings · 3D model · Build sequence · Guided tour
Roman
About the period →Building · Hellenistic to Late Roman
The Theatre at Kourion
late 2nd century BC to the later 4th century AD · Kourion
The Roman theatre on the Kourion bluff in seven states, from the smaller Hellenistic theatre through Trajan's enlargement and the marble stage to the hunting theatre and the ruin restored in 1961-63.
Formats: Measured drawings · 3D model · Build sequence · Guided tour
Building · Roman
How a Roman Bath Was Heated
1st to 4th century AD · Kourion, Amathus and Salamis
A small Roman bath of the kind built across Cyprus, cut open to show how it was heated: the furnace, the brick stacks under the floor, the hollow walls, and the hot gases moving through them as the bath warms over three days.
Formats: Measured drawings · 3D model · Build sequence · Guided tour
Building · Late Roman
The Earthquake House at Kourion
later 4th century AD · Kourion
A late Roman house of mudbrick on stone socles round a small paved court, brought down by an earthquake in the later 4th century AD, rebuilt as it stood on its last day and as it was first built.
Formats: Measured drawings · 3D model · Build sequence · Guided tour