A Bronze Age settlement, which was established around 2500 BC and was craft-based, was uncovered in Kissonerga-Skalia north of Paphos, as the result of the completion of the 2025 season of archaeological excavations at the settlement, under the direction of Dr Lindy Crewe, director of the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI).
The Department of Antiquities said in a press release on Thursday that the site indicates a long Bronze Age sequence, and evidence for earlier Chalcolithic occupation, beginning before 2500 BC, succeeding the neighbouring Neolithic-Philia phase settlement of Kissonerga-Mosphilia.
“The site was abandoned around 1600 BC, just into the beginning of the Late Cypriot Bronze Age. Kissonerga-Skalia is an example of a phenomenon observed at the time, whereby people began to build large structures and produce goods at a greater scale while seaborne trade was flourishing in the Mediterranean,” it added.
“As the site was abandoned shortly after the complex was built and the remains are not obscured by later human activity, this phenomenon can therefore be examined in detail,” the press release noted.
It further added that “investigations at the site have shown that Kissonerga-Skalia was established as a village during the initial Philia phase of the Bronze Age, around 2500 BC, and became a flourishing community until near the end of the Middle Bronze Age, around 1750 BC.”
At this time, according to the press release, the earlier domestic structures were abandoned and a large-scale building programme took place, demolishing earlier structures in the northern upslope area and dumping building material downslope in the south to create a flat building area of at least 1,200 m2.
“A new series of large walls up to 1.2 m wide were constructed, creating a complex of open courtyards and roofed areas connected by trampled mud or plaster floors. This may have only been occupied for a few generations before being abandoned for good around 1600 BC,” it said.
“The complex presents no evidence of domestic occupation and activities seem to be craft related, including large fire-related installations and areas for grinding and processing materials, along with several storage vessels,” the Department of Antiquities said.
It pointed out that “during the 2025 season the team further exposed the features associated with the use of the complex. Previously, excavation had revealed a 1.5 metre in diameter domed oven located in a plaster-floored courtyard along with cooking pots, ground stone tools and other objects.”
“The courtyard has now been shown to be ‘L-shaped’ and in the short end of the ‘L’ the team has discovered a new oven, which is proving to be one of the most interesting features at the site.,” the press release said.
This new oven, it added, “measures around four metres in diameter and was constructed as a hard baked mud-plaster concave hemisphere. It appears to have had low mud walls but was not roofed.”
According to the Antiquities Department “excavation of the oven has been completed and within the feature disused ground stone tools, chunks of plaster, pottery shards and animal bones were found. The oven went out of use before the abandonment of the site and was filled in and covered with a floor prior to the construction of the smaller domed oven in the same courtyard.”
“The exact purpose of the oven remains unclear but through systematic wet-sieving of the soils within it, food remains of terebinthus and wheat were retrieved, which were likely accidentally burned in the oven. This allows for the intriguing possibility that Cypriots were consuming a type of food made with wheat and terebinth seeds already in the Bronze Age,” the press release concluded.