Souskiou-Laona Excavation Project

Twelve seasons of excavation at the settlement/cemetery site of Souskiou Laona in southwestern Cyprus by a team of archaeologists under the direction of the late Professor Edgar Peltenburg paint a very different picture of Chalcolithic life on the island than hitherto attested. While burial practices at other known sites of the period comprise single intramural inhumations in pit graves, only rarely equipped with artefacts, the extramural cemeteries at Souskiou consist of deep rock-cut tombs containing multiple burials and numerous grave goods, chief among which are picrolite pendants and figurines. Excavations at the Laona settlement show that it functioned as a specialised centre for the procurement and manufacture of picrolite during its earlier phases. The decline of picrolite production during the final phase of the settlement, as well as the earliest known occurrences in Cyprus of faience beads and copper ornaments, attest to renewed contact between the island and the surrounding mainland, and to important transformations in personal and social identities during the first centuries of the 3rd millennium B.C.