Bronze Age Tombs Containing Luxury Goods Unearthed in Cyprus

LARNAKA, CYPRUS—Kathimerini Cyprus reports that chamber tombs dated to the fourteenth century B.C. have been uncovered at the archaeological site of Hala Sultan Tekke, a Bronze Age port city on the southern coast of Cyprus. Copper mined from the island’s Troodos Mountains was processed locally and shipped out from Hala Sultan Tekke, producing great wealth. Archaeologist Peter M. Fischer of the University of Gothenburg said that the tombs had been reused for generations before they collapsed in antiquity, damaging some of their contents. DNA analysis of the human remains could reveal kinship ties among the dead, who are thought to have been elites involved in copper export and international trade. Among the luxury goods recovered from the tombs, Fischer and his colleagues have identified local pottery, pottery from Sardinia, and pottery imported from Greece, Crete, and other islands in the Aegean Sea; ivory objects and alabaster vessels from Egypt; lapis lazuli from Afghanistan; carnelian from India; and Baltic amber made into beads and a scarab. To read more about excavations at Hala Sultan Tekke, go to "In the Time of the Copper Kings."