Royal Tombs

The existence of at least one subterranean chamber had been established as early as 1896 by a British archaeological expedition, and the pillaging of others by robbers and vandals, notably the neighbouring villagers of Engomi, had become a part of local folk-lore. But until recently it had been assumed that whatever tombs existed had been thoroughly plundered, and that except for details of their construction, full-scale investigation would be unrewarding. The contrary proved to be the truth when in 1957 the Department of Antiquities undertook systematic excavation of what has come to be known as Tomb 1 of the royal necropolis. Its lower layers were found to be undisturbed, and contained two burials, one of which was equipped with a bronze cauldron used to contain the remains. A necklace and some sheets of gold obviously formed part of the ornamentation of the deceased, a Cypriot princess of some consequence. Another, but no less important, development was the exhumation of the bones of two horses from the dromos or entrance to the tomb.

The results of this first operation were now seen to justify the employment of full-scale resources by the Department of Antiquities, though it could not be assumed that the contents of the known burial chambers would have been left undisturbed by the plunderers and collectors of the past, whose activities elsewhere resulted in so much of value being scattered abroad and lost. The most that could be expected was to find that though the tombs had been robbed of everything of intrinsic value, they would yet provide inestimable archaeological and historical findings. The site in effect proved to be the hitherto missing royal necropolis of Salamis. It provided all-important evidence of what hitherto had been legend: that the city was founded by Teucer on his way home from the Trojan War, and that it succeeded Enkomi as early as the eleventh century B.C. The contents of the tombs are Homeric in a literal sense, as they conform to that classical narrator's account of the funeral of Patroclos in the Iliad. Among the evidence of sacrificial burial which has come to light are the skeletons of slaves, and of asses and horses in their prime, the chariots of their dead sovereigns and various vessels such as would have contained honey and other funerary food, and which correspond to those used in Mycenaean rites, and ivory furniture of unique splendour. Complete documentation is contained in Dr Karageorghis's book on Salamis (see Bibliography).
Though the priceless contents have had to be removed for restoration and safe-keeping, even the most uninitiated of visitors cannot fail to regard the royal tombs as far more than holes in the ground -largely because the skeletons of horses have been left in situ (in fact where they fell under the bludgeons of their executioners) and can now be seen under glass erected for their protection. A gruesome and realistic touch is added by the fact that in many cases it is apparent that whereas the first of a pair of horses was struck down in its harness, still yoked to the chariot, the second had in panic escaped to a far corner of the approach to the inner tomb, before dying from a broken neck. In fact, both because of their antiquity and their substantiation of Homeric legend, these remains constitute one of the most fascinating relics in the entire island, coupled as they are with the more valuable exhibits on permanent exhibition in the Cyprus Museum.