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The completion of the... third season of systematic excavations..., conducted at the site of Katalymmata ton Plakoton, of the Akrotiri peninsula, on the south coast, under the directions of the Senior Archaeological Officer of the Department Eleni Procopiou. During this season the excavation of the rest of the western part of what was most probably the narthex of a very important ecclesiastical building of the end of the 6th or the beginning of the 7th century A.D., which began in 2007, was completed. The narthex has a total length of 14m on an E-W axis and a width of 36m...

A second building was discovered and brought to light in 2008 South to the industrial area. This is a unique construction, consisting of two rooms arranged in a triangular area. As the nearby building it was probably destroyed by the earthquake and abandoned in 1800 BC circa... The room is rectangular, tapered toward southeast to follow the triangular shape of the complex. It is divided into two areas: the north is covered, the south unroofed. The North keeps intact the lying of the collapse of structures at the time of the earthquake. The collapse, which was not removed, it gives...

For over a millennium, a fortified settlement with a shrine stood on a plateau near the eastern Larnaca coast ringed with a defensive wall, foreign and Cypriot archaeologists believe. Earlier theories about the significance of the site were confirmed during this year's fieldwork at the Pyla-Koutsopetria locality by the identification of a section of the wall, datable to the Late Bronze Age... The settlement, located on a hill known as Kokkinokremmos/ Vigla – Red Cliff/Lookout Post, is estimated to have been inhabited from the Cypro-Archaic period in the 13th-14th century B.C. to Hellenistic and Roman times. The site is situated...

An unexpected sexual curse has been uncovered by archaeologists at Cyprus's old city kingdom of Amathus, on the island's south coast near Limassol, according to a newspaper on Friday. "A curse is inscribed in Greek on a lead tablet and part of it reads: 'May your penis hurt when you make love'," Pierre Aubert, head of Athens Archaeological School in Greece told the English language Cyprus Weekly. He said the tablet showed a man standing holding something in his right hand that looks like an hour glass. The inscription dates back to the 7th century AD when Christianity was well...

In 1983 a sponge diver found funny metal biscuits with ears at the ocean floor. That is how the excavation got started, Hirschfeld said. The ship carried ten tons of copper ingots, which after being analyzed, were determined to be from Cyprus. Each ingot weighs approximately 60 pounds, she said. She and her team also excavated glass ingots, tons of tin, and three Italian swords that were not part of the cargo of the ship. Among the 130 Canaanite jars they found, there were traces of wine in the jars and one was full of glass beads. The team also...

...The newly discovered monumental room is believed to be an extension of the underground Temple of Sidon, which dates back to the Bronze Age. This finding comes as workers prepare the foundations of a new national museum, which will be established beside the archaeological site. Construction of the museum led to urgent excavations at the site last month. Ten years ago, the delegation discovered an underground "holy of holies" room, dating back to 1300 B.C., where ancient residents are believed to have worshipped their gods. The newly discovered room was found adjacent to it, and is thought to be an...

Ancient furnace sparks archaeological interest A UNIQUE site in the whole of the Eastern Mediterranean and expected to shed more light on ancient copper mining has been uncovered in the Mathiatis area, about 20km south of Nicosia. It consists of the base of a copper smelting furnace with its last charge of slag still in place. The discovery was made by students participating in an educational research programme in cooperation with Inter Community School Cyprus Project 2005, under the direction of Dr Walter Fasnacht. The participants from the staff of the Department of Antiquities were G. Georgiou, archaeologist, and E...