BUILDERS have discovered an ancient tomb hidden underneath a house in the Ayioi Omoloyites suburb of Nicosia when renovation works on the house began this week.
Construction Worker Costas Constantinou opened a hole, half a metre wide that revealed a space five feet below the surface and decided to investigate by squeezing down the shaft.
“I saw two rooms which were eight metres wide each. I don’t know what it is so cannot say much about it, just that we were surprised to find it as we were just doing our job.”
The tombs at the house in Miaouli Street are part of the Ayioi Omoloyites Necropolis, which is now the responsibility of the Department of Antiquities
Pavlos Flourenzos, Director of the Antiquities Department, yesterday expressed delight at the find. “The owners want the tomb to be visited by the public. They told me they want to preserve it and by no accounts will they charge people to enter their property to view the tombs, but obviously he is deciding how he will make it part of his home and accessible to the public.”
The owner, Achilleas Kentonis, is an artist and owns a cultural centre in the area, which influenced his decision to co-operate with the Antiquities Department to help preserve the site.
Flourenzos stressed: “It is not exactly an archaeological find as the tomb had been extensively looted many, many years ago. The department knows this find is only unique because of its chambers.”
The tomb was buried by a layer of debris that covered it for years and was used as a sewage system by residents in the area. Excavation work will only proceed if there is public interest in visiting the site, but Florenzou admitted, “it may not be worth excavating, we’ll have to do a lot of work to it.”
The Department of Antiquities has sent an archaeologist to investigate the site, who found it very difficult to photograph the area and take equipment into the tomb, going down a depth of five meters down a hole just half a metre wide. The archaeologist recorded a big spacious lobby with two chambers, one to the right and one left. The lobby then led to a carved gate, which then led to a large space with seven grave-booths. The height of the tomb is around two and a half meters with a length of eight metres and a width of five meters.
On part of the entry to the graves, a large cross was found engraved into the stone, which identifies the tombs as Christians catacombs.
Flourenzos expressed his appreciation of the owner’s sensitivity of this find noting, “Graves such as these were found by householders in Nicosia and were simply kept hidden to avoid maintaining them.” But responsibility of the tomb is now with the Department of Antiquities, who will fund any future work on the tomb.
