Murray, Alexander S.; Smith, Arthur H.; Walters, Henry Beauchamp: Excavations in Cyprus: bequest of Miss E. T. Turner to the British Museum (London, 1900)

D R 0 M OS

ransacked the tomb, taking care to replace the entrance slab. One of the things which
disturbed me in the first weeks of the excavations was the frequency of these wells,
sometimes cut clean down in the rock, at other times cased with rough stones, as in
modern wells. In one instance the covering
stone over the mouth of the well was still in
position. It was necessary to clear these
wells out to see whether any evidence could
be obtained as to who were the makers of
them. But nothing of the kind was forth-
coming. All that could be inferred was that
the site had been diligently cultivated in
comparatively modern times. The ruins of
two small chapels, almost razed to the ground
—the one above the crag, the other below it
—afforded no definite date. But in several
places we found in the upper soil interments of a poor kind, accompanied with dishes of a
yellow and green glazed ware decorated with rude figures or patterns. This ware is
assigned to the 13th or 14th century, and if that is right we thus obtain a reasonable date
for the people who sank the wells and ransacked the tombs. They may not have been the
first who did ransack the tombs, as they certainly were not the last; but fortunate as we
were, they may have been more so. During the 13th and 14th centuries Famagusta was
the great town of the district. Salamis had long sunk into ruins. But the country round
Salamis was still fertile, not least so the forgotten burying-ground of the old Mycenaean city.

5 FEET

Fig. 4.

SECTION A-B

SECTION E-F

TOM B 66

Fig. 5.