For some families tomb raiding became a business, earning the equivalent of a year’s salary for one night’s digging.
An ancient tomb discovered last week in Protaras has led archaeologists to believe that the site may be part of an ancient cemetery.
The 2,400-year-old tomb was discovered after workers digging a new coastal path uncovered the find only a few feet below the surface and decided to call in state archaeologists.
The Antiquities Department believe the tomb, which lies directly under the surface of the path, dates to either the Roman or Hellenistic period.
“This is a valuable find; the importance is primarily that it is un-looted, unlike most tombs in the area,” Antiquities Department director Maria Hadjicosti told the Sunday Mail.
“We think this is part of a larger cemetery or burial ground. This is a new area of discovery for us.”
The site, which has been sealed off, is just a stone’s throw from the sea and several large hotels and round-the-clock security is now in place.
Early indications suggest that the find dates to around 300 BC, when the whole of Cyprus came under the control of the Ptolemies, who introduced the political and cultural institutions of the Hellenistic world to the island.
Even two thousand years after the tomb was sealed, it is clear that a great amount of time and energy was invested in the preparation, arrangement and sealing of the graves.
The find has excited archaeological officer George Georgiou who believes that it could be one of many burial grounds scattered around the south coast, which has remained free from the hands of tomb raiders.
“It is a rich tomb. In roughly the same area where there are burial chambers from the same period, they were open and looted. This one is intact, which increases its archaeological value,” he said.
The painted caskets are in such good condition possibly because the combination of the coffin and chamber prevented ground water seeping through.
The chamber, which was publicly revealed last week, contains four sarcophagi, human bones, glass and a few items of pottery.
The lids of the coffins are adorned with colourful painted floral patterns, which have not been exposed to light since they were sealed, 300 years before the birth of Christ.
Discoveries over the last 20 years have shown the area is littered with ancient tombs, with the vast majority of them being found empty, plundered by gangs of tomb raiders.
TOMB ROBBING
LAST week’s find is especially important after a frenzy of tomb robbing in the last two centuries destroyed thousands of burial sites all over the island leaving them stripped of their treasures.
In the north, many were left devastated in the feverish hunt for antiquities.
For some families tomb raiding became a business, earning the equivalent of a year’s salary for one night’s digging.
Such dreams of riches provided a powerful lure for many, which is why archaeologists say the Protaras find is so unique.
In the last century villagers evolved subterfuges to disguise their illegal activities and even when an area was being watched for tomb robbing the villagers could usually outwit the authorities.
Organised outfits even had their own working regulations, which included tossing a pebble in first (as sometimes large snakes had made their home there), digging in winter as the roofs were less likely to collapse and never entering until after 15 minutes of opening the tomb, as the putrefied air could be toxic.
Legends abound about the great treasures found on the island, though there is no way of verifying these.
One hotel there is said to have been built from the proceeds of a gold hoard found in a tomb, including a funeral mask wrapped around a baby’s skull.
Hajicosti brushed off suggestions that so-called ‘nighthawkers’ are still taking to the fields under cover of darkness in the hope of finding buried treasure from the past.
“Tomb raiding happens in most countries of the world. Here it was prevalent in the 1800s and last century, but not now. Obviously I cannot speak for what happens in the north,” she said.
As recently as 1990 archaeologists completed the excavation of an area in Ayia Napa, which had been subjected to illegal digging since 1872.
The work lead to the discovery of nineteen tombs and a small sanctuary just off the popular Macronissos beach. Like the new Protaras find, the tombs were used during the Hellenistic and Roman period – but sadly everything in them had been stolen.
Paralimni Mayor Andreas Evangelou has demanded that an archaeological museum must be constructed in the area, but with large scale development covering much of the land and only a handful few discoveries being made the idea may be a long time coming.
RECENT FINDS
2008: Building workers in Larnaca uncovered three sarcophagi, two of which were important finds dating from 500BC.
2003: An ancient tomb was found afternoon on Meleandros Street in Ayia Phyla in Limassol by men working for CyTA while digging a ditch. The tomb dated from the Cyprus-Archaic era.
2002: An ancient tomb was found during work on a sewage system in the centre of Paphos. The tomb dates back to the late Classical Hellenistic period (336-30 BC).
Human skeletons were found along with a large number of clay vessels.
