Abstract

This volume is the full publication of eighteen Early and Middle Bronze Age tombs excavated in the extensive Vrysi tou Barba cemetery at Lapithos on the north coast of Cyprus in 1917 by Menelaos Markides, the first Curator of the Cyprus Museum. Based on archival records, museum inventories and the finds, now in the Cyprus Museum, it presents a full description of each tomb and its contents, with tomb plans, drawings and colour photographs of all objects; as well as a detailed account of the excavations, the ceramic and metal assemblages and the site of Lapithos in its wider archaeological context. In addition, it contains chapters on Markides (by Despina Pilides), the location of the tombs (by Stella Diakou and Jennifer Webb), portable X-ray Fluorescence analysis of the ceramics (by Maria Dikomitou-Eliadou and Marcos Martinon-Torres) and the chemical characterisation of the copper alloy artefacts (by Andreas Charalambous). The volume almost doubles the number of excavated and fully published tombs from the Vrysi tou Barba cemetery and makes an important contribution to our understanding of one of the largest and most important Middle Bronze Age settlements on Cyprus.