The Site
Agia Varvara-ALMYRAS is situated about one kilometre southeast
of Agia Varvara Village, district of Nicosia, Cyprus. As a site
of primary extractive copper metallurgy, ALMYRAS allows for the
complete investigation of the technology of copper production in
the the Iron Age. Agia Varvara-ALMYRAS was discovered by Walter
Fasnacht, the present director of the project, in 1982 during an
archaeometallurgical survey for the Cornell University project at
Alambra, Cyprus. Excavations were initiated in 1988 and fifteen
excavating seasons have taken place since.
The copper working evidence, as well as traces of domestic and
religious activity, has been dated with the help of pottery finds
and radiocarbon dating to:
Cypro-Archaic II (ca. 600 BC)
Cypro-Classical (around 400 BC)
Cypro-Hellenistic II (ca. 150 BC).
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