Necropoleis at Palaepaphos from the End of the Late Bronze Age to the Cypro-Archaic Period Vol II

PUBLISHED 2016. Please visit the publication's webpage.
 
The most important cemetery of Kouklia/ancient Palaepaphos during the Cypro-Geometric period (c. 1050 - 750 B.C.) is the Skales cemetery southeast of the settlement site. A systematic excavation of more than 50 tombs in this area had taken place in winter and spring 1979. The tombs were published by Prof. Vassos Karageorghis (Palaepaphos-Slwles. An Iron Age Cemetery in Cyprus) very quickly afterwards in 1983. They display an extraordinary wealth not only of pottery, but of metalwork as well, vases, weapons, implements of various types, and obeloi, one of them with the oldest extant inscription in Cypro-syllabic script (or a very late stage of Cypro­-Minoan) with the owner's name Opheltas, earliest epigraphic evidence of the presence of Greek settlers in ancient Paphos. The tomb inventories are characterized by strong elements of Greek material culture (metal vases of Greek types, among them the only known tripod cauldron in Cyprus) as well as weapons of Greek derivation and obeloi, which are part of banquet equipment in these extraordinary rich tombs of the aristocracy of Palaipaphos, whereas other artifacts (gold jewellery, some types of metal vases, imported pottery) illustrate the influence of the Syrian-­Phoenician region. 
Meanwhile more tombs have been excavated during rescue excavations, during road construction as well as agricultural activities in the area. These new tombs of the 11th to 9th centuries B. C. are again extremely rich in fine ceramics, rare bronze vessels, a bronze helmet (raising the number of metal helmets to three within this very long period, others from Kourion-Kaloriziki and Palaipaphos-Plakes), bronze and iron weapons (daggers, swords, lance-heads), scarabs, jewellery etc. 
Therefore, the tombs, together with the earlier finds from the Skales cemetery as well as the tombs, recently published by Karageorghis and Raptou, from Palaepaphos-Plakes will help to describe the history of Kouklia/Palaipaphos, which is one of the most important, if not the most important settlement of Cyprus during the early first millennium B. C. and later became one of the major city kingdoms of the island, due not only to continuous settlement activities, but also to the well-known temple of Aphrodite, the most prominent sanctuary of Aphrodite in the ancient world, which starts at the end of the Bronze Age and continues down into the Roman period. For all these reasons Palaepaphos is a place of foremost significance, and the tombs with their extremely rich burial gifts will contribute to a better knowledge of the history of the site at the beginning of the 1st millennium B. C. and the history of Cyprus in general, furthermore they will shed light on the processes of Hellenisation of the island of Aphrodite at the turn of the 2nd to the 1st millennium B. C. 
They will also elucidate a number of different aspects of the cultural history of Cyprus, burial customs, influenced by Greek prototypes, especially the custom of burying warriors with their weapons, which finds parallels in contemporary Greece, on the differences of burial assemblages according to gender. Rituals of banqueting, which are illustrated by sets of metal vases and obeloi, are a typical feature of aristocratic elites in many Mediterranean regions, they point back to Greece, and they can be defined more precisely with the help of the find contexts in Skales, which are among the earliest in the East Mediterranean. 
 
The director of the publication project is Prof. Vassos Karageorghis.