Cyprus: Discovery of Remains of an Ancient Trading City

The remains of an ancient port and trading city have been discovered in southern Cyprus during excavations by Sweden's Gothenburg University, the Mediterranean island's antiquities department announced on Wednesday.

Located on the shores of the salt lake of Larnaca, in the south of the island, the city, whose area is estimated at at least 25 hectares, dates from the end of the Bronze Age. This would have flourished between 1,600 and 1,100 BC, said Giorgos Georgiou, acting director of the Cyprus Department of Antiquities. "The city's wealth seems to have been based on copper production and trade with cultures near and far," he added in a written response to AFP. Objects discovered during excavation work suggest the presence of a trading post, he added. According to the Swedish team, tombs, discovered on the site in July by a team from the University of Gothenburg, are among the most sumptuous ever discovered in the Mediterranean region.

"Given the wealth of funerary objects, one can logically assume that they were royal tombs," said Peter Fischer, professor of archeology and leader of the expedition, on the university's website. The tombs consist of subterranean chambers accessed by a narrow passage from the surface. “We found more than 500 whole objects distributed in two tombs,” added the leader of the Swedish expedition, which has been carrying out excavations around Hala Sultan Tekke since 2010. According to the latter, around half of the objects discovered were imported. including from Egypt, Afghanistan and India. “The tombs contained a variety of funerary objects, including locally produced pottery and decorative objects, as well as many jewels and other imported objects,” reports Georgiou.

Other metal objects were discovered such as precious metal jewellery, tiaras, daggers, knives, spear points and a bronze mirror, the Cypriot official added.