Kythrea Temenos
An article presenting unpublished material from Kythrea Temenos ‘Skali’ from the Swedish Cyprus Expedition in the Medelhavsmuseet.
Here is the introduction:
The present article reports on the contents of 40 small (32 x 18 x 8 cm) boxes with unpublished material from the Swedish Cyprus Expedition. The boxes were found to contain sculptures in stone, in terracotta, and pottery. Diagnostic sherds and the style of the statuary place the material in the Iron Age. For most of the datable artefacts an Archaic date can be suggested. The sculptures belong to types known from Iron Age sanctuaries; their predominance in the assemblage is indicative of a sanctuary. The labeling on all boxes reads “Kythrea Temenos”.
We were not able to locate any fieldwork records for Kythrea Temenos. In his letter of July 31, 1991, Alfred Westholm indicated that he had no recollection of a site which had been dug at Kythrea, other than the Chalcolithic village, which he dug himself.
According to the records of the Medelhavsmuseet, Einar Gjerstad applied on November 7, 1929 to the Colonial Secretary to carry out excavations on behalf of the Swedish Archaeological Society of Stockholm in the area of Ayios Demetrianos near the village of Kythrea. Permission was granted on October 21, 1930 for excavations to be carried out for a period of two years, commencing on October…