EXCAVATIONS IN CYPRUS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26944, 21 January 1953, Page 9

EXCAVATIONS IN CYPRUS

ROYAL REGALIA FOUND

REPOSITORY OF SCEPTRE LOCATED (From a Reuter Correspondent.) ■ NICOSIA (Cyprus). A 50-year-old archaeological riddle has been solved by the Pennsylvania University Museum expedition, which is excavating at Curium, in South Cyprus.

Almost half a century ago, police at Larnaca Port confiscated a golden sceptre, together with parts of a bronze cauldron, which had been illicitly excavated in the area of Curium. The sceptre, which had a pair of hawks standing on an orb and decorated with coloured enamels, was handed over to the Cyprus Museum. It has been there ever since, one of the museum’s most treasured possessions. Experts say the sceptre was part of the regalia of one of the Kings of Curium, but exactly where it was discovered was not known until the Pennsylvania expedition this year located the tomb where it was discovered nearly 50 years ago. The discovery of this tomb, together with a report of new finds at Curium, is announced in a statement just issued by the Cyprus Antiquities Department, on behalf of the Pennsylvania expedition. Systematic inquiries among the older members of the community at Episcopi, a village two miles from the main Curium site, eventually traced the sole survivor of the three villagers who rifled the tomb 50 years ago. He supplied valuable and detailed information about the position of the grave.

The Pennsylvania expedition then found and cleared a tomb not far from the village. This corresponded perfectly, in every detail but one, to the description giyen by the old tombrobber. The exception was the discovery, at one end of the tombchamber, of a rock-hewn bench.

It is now clear that the tomb-rob-bers mistook this side of the bench for the rock-hewn wall of the tomb itself, with the result that everything that had been placed on top of the bench escaped their attention—and has now been recovered by the expedition.

These new finds include a bronze cauldron similar to the one confiscated by the police in 1903. Among the cremated remains inside the newly-discovered cauldron was a long gold pin.

According to the surviving tombrobber, the gold sceptre was found under the cauldron, among the cremated remains of the King to whom the sceptre must have belonged. The tomb is believed to date back to the eleventh century before Christ. The Cyprus Antiquities Department’s statement also mentions a superb mosaic found this year at Curium. It depicts a detailed scene from Homer’s “Iliad”* in brilliant colour. The mosaic is tentatively dated as belonging to the third century A.D.