Byzantine church and clay-processing tank uncovered in Larnaca district excavations

Larnaca, Cyprus. Archaeologists have uncovered a Byzantine church and a clay-processing tank during excavations at Kofinou-Ayios Heraklios and Menoyia-Limnes in the Larnaca district, the antiquities department said on Monday.

The church at Kofinou-Ayios Heraklios

The department said the dig exposed an almost complete floor of large gypsum slabs and established where the templon, or sanctuary screen, once stood, shown by strips of lime mortar on the floor. The single-aisled structure is a compact six-column cross-in-square church built between the 8th and 10th centuries AD.

Among the significant findings inside the church, which had been partly exposed before, the department listed a dome with curved voussoirs that form part of the dome’s drum, as well as a square bay formed by the second and third pairs of pilasters.

Fragments of non-figurative frescoes were found on the lower parts of the south wall. They resemble marble revetment, with red and green bands on a white background, which points to extensive decoration. In the sanctuary, a smaller secondary apse was also found, built inside the larger apse of the original early Byzantine basilica.

Collapse, later use and burials

Ceramic finds from the collapse layers date the church’s abandonment and partial collapse to the mid-14th century. Hearths, cooking vessels and animal bones found in the debris suggest the ruined space served a non-liturgical purpose from the late 14th to the mid-16th century.

A trench to the south-east of the church exterior confirmed that the surrounding area was used for burials in the Late Middle Ages. It yielded scattered human bones, a grave slab and ceramics from the 15th and 16th centuries.

Four building phases

Preliminary dating of the complex proposes four successive phases:
the first is an early Byzantine three-aisled basilica from the late 6th to early 7th century;
the second is a domed compact cross-in-square church, built over the central nave of the basilica between the 8th and 10th centuries;
the third is a period of funerary and domestic activity after the church collapsed, from the mid-14th to the mid-16th century;
the fourth is the small barrel-vaulted chapel of Ayios Heraklios, built over the middle section of the basilica narthex after the 16th century.

The department said it is the first time in Cyprus that an organised cemetery in continuous use from the 6th to the 16th century has been documented archaeologically, together with evidence of cult activity during the troubled 8th to 10th centuries.

Pottery workshop at Menoyia-Limnes

At Menoyia-Limnes, five new trenches considerably broadened knowledge of the early Byzantine pottery workshop. According to the department, the most outstanding discovery of the season was a built clay-processing tank, constructed directly on the natural rock. Its interior held alternating layers of pure clay and sieved earth.

The department said the tank provides the first direct archaeological evidence in Cyprus for part of the production process in a pre-modern pottery workshop.