Completion of the excavation season of the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project (PKAP) at Pyla-Vigla

The Department of Antiquities of the Deputy Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Cyprus announces the completion of the 2025 excavation season of The Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project (PKAP) at Pyla-Vigla. The 19th season was conducted during June and July 2025 under the direction of Dr Brandon R. Olson of Metropolitan State University of Denver, Dr Melanie Godsey of Trinity University, and Dr Tom Landvatter of Reed College.

PKAP’s excavations at the site of Pyla-Viglaover the past several years have revealed the presence of an early-Hellenistic fortified site located on a steep plateau overlooking Larnaka Bay. The military nature of the site is demonstrated by the discovery of an extensive fortification system, projectile points, lead sling bullets, and evidence of weapons production. The architectural, ceramic, and numismatic evidence discovered so far date the occupation of Vigla to the late fourth and early third centuries B.C.

PKAP’s 2025 fieldwork focused on further understanding of the domestic areas of site in the centre of the plateau where rooms from at least four buildings have been uncovered (Figure 1). The largest of these buildings, a long rectangular structure running through the northern line of excavation units and beyond to the north and west, has a series of repeated rectangular rooms that were subdivided by spur walls in the latest phase of occupation. To the south and separated by a paved alleyway, one building with a similar layout has been partly uncovered to the east, and to the west another has a large room with central line of supports with stone. Similar objects and features have been found in each of these. Another trench to the east revealed the foundations of another building on a different axis from the others.

Cooking, fine, and coarse ware ceramics and metal implements indicate a series of domestic activities like cooking, drinking and dining, and personal adornment in all these spaces. Plaster installations and surfaces, drains, stone basins, and many transport amphoras in various rooms, however, suggest that some supra-household storage or industrial activities also occurred in these spaces. Many bronze, lead, and iron weapons reaffirm the military community operating here. Daily life in an early Hellenistic military community on Cyprus seems to have included tasks that bridged small household and larger communal modes of dwelling and working.

Figure 1: Aerial photograph of the excavation of Pyla-Vigla site

(EK/IA/MS)

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