Bronze Age Cyprus

Knob lug bowl
Ayia Paraskevi Tomb 11, Early Cypriot III, late 21st century BCE
Donated by the Melbourne University Cyprus Expedition, care of Marion Steven, 1957.
JLMC 50.57

After these excavations in Cyprus were completed, the artefacts from these sites travelled on long journeys around the world. Some finds remained in Cyprus, while other objects were sent to the various universities and individuals that paid for the digs.

Along the way, some objects have been lost, some have lost their labels, some were damaged by a flood in a museum, and others were stolen. This makes the objects we have here even more precious, and important to safeguard for the future.

Head of a plank idol
Karmi Palealona Tomb 8, Early Cypriot IIIB to Middle Cypriot I
Donated by the Melbourne University Cyprus Expedition, care of Dr J.B. Hennessy, University of Sydney, 1973.
JLMC 150.73

Most of the artefacts from the Cypriot excavations came out of graves, and were deliberately placed with the dead.

The burials at Ayia Paraskevi were simple pit graves, while the graves at Lapatsa and Palealona were more complex. These were tombs which had a dromos (a square or rectangular sloped corridor), leading down to stone slab or door, behind which was an underground chamber, often circular in shape. Most tombs had only one chamber, a few had two or more.

The archaeologists would find in the tomb the bones of the dead, sometimes up to four skeletons, surrounded by the grave goods that had been placed with them.