3,500 year old Mystery Structure Discovered at Kissonerga-Skalia, Cyprus, Could be Ancient Fort

Heritage Key has learned that an archaeological team has unearthed a large structure on the southwest coast of Cyprus that may be the remains of an ancient fortress.

The foundations of it were built with stone and mud mortar and it had a mud brick superstructure. The team has uncovered 17 meters of wall so far with “no evidence of its final extent.”

The dating is not yet firm but it appears have been occupied no later than ca. 1550 BC. It was found at Kissonerga-Skalia – an ancient Cypriot town that is at least 12 hectares in size.

A team led by Dr. Lindy Crewe, who is a Lecturer in Archaeology of Artefacts and Technology at the University of Manchester and Research Fellow Manchester Museum, has been excavating it. The Manchester team has been at the site for three seasons.

Crewe discussed the find at a recent event in Toronto and I followed up with a brief interview and an exchange of emails.

Let me take you through what they found:

Kissonerga-Skalia

Kissonerga-Skalia was a village that existed on the southwest coast of Cyprus and dates to the Early Middle Bronze Age Period (ca. 2400-1650 BC).

The area around it is rich in history, with human occupation going back to the Neolithic era.

Dr. Crewe said that it existed at a time when Cyprus was “inward looking." Settlements in Cyprus tended to be away from the coastline.

Louise Steel writes in her book Cyprus Before History that, “throughout much of the prehistoric Bronze Age, Cyprus appears to be largely isolated from the surrounding cultures of the East Mediterranean. This is seemingly a matter of choice.”

So Kissonerga-Skalia’s coastal location makes it rather unique. Crewe said it suggests that the people of this site “have a different attitude to the outside world,” than their fellow Cypriots.

The team hasn’t found evidence of widespread trade with the outside world yet but Crewe has “high hopes” that they will in future seasons.

Crewe believes that the town held about 30 houses, each built with a stone foundation and mud brick superstructure. The population of the site was likely under 1,000 and the people manufactured a reddish type of pottery called “Drab Polished Ware,” a type of ceramic that is seen mostly in the southwest part of Cyprus.

The finds also include gaming stones, sea shells and freshwater crab, copper fishing implements and a limestone tube that was found near an oven. 

A Possible Fortress

Much more digging needs to done to determine what the mystery structure is. “We don't know what the use of the building was yet as we have not excavated it all,” said Dr. Crewe in an email. The date of the building is not yet firm. It doesn’t seem to be occupied later than 1550 BC and it may have been built ca. 1750 BC.

The building is not entirely unique. Buildings identified as “fortifications” dating to this time frame have been found on other parts of the island. Crewe said that they "reflect the changing attitudes of Cypriot populations as they became integrated into the eastern Mediterranean trading systems at the threshold of the Late Bronze Age."

No two look alike and it’s a matter of debate as to whether they are actual “fortifications” or served other purposes. “There is a possibility that it (the structure they found) is a perimeter wall or a very large building," she said.  

"The tendency in the archaeological literature has been to label these buildings all 'fortifications' without firm evidence that they necessarily had a militaristic function... It is likely that they served a range of roles related to increased storage, emulation of foreign ideas, and changes in the structure of Cypriot society."

So an ancient fortress in Cyprus is an (interesting) possibility but we're going to have to wait on future fieldwork to know what the structure is.   

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