Pyla-Kokkinokremos
Pyla-Kokkinokremos was a Late Bronze Age settlement on Cyprus, which was abandoned after a brief occupation.
History
The site of Pyla-Kokkinokremos, located on a rocky plateau, lies about east of Larnaca and ancient Kition, and some southwest of Enkomi, two major Bronze Age centres of the 13th–12th centuries BC, the period known as Late Cypriot IIC and IIIA.The site was explored by Porphyrios Dikaios in 1952, by Vassos Karageorghis in 1981 and 1982 and from 2010 to 2013, by Vassos Karageorghis and Athanasia Kanta. Since 2014, the excavation is a joint venture between Joachim Bretschneider, Jan Driessen and Athanasia Kanta.
Based on the different explorations, it can be assumed that the entire plateau of around seven hectares was densely occupied. Most telling is the excavation of part of a regularly laid-out settlement in the eastern and north-western sector of which the outer perimeter 'casemate' wall is assumed to have encircled the entire hill top plateau. The repetition of residential units within the excavated sectors appears to suggest that the establishment of the settlement was deliberate and planned. Moreover, the discovery of material culture, including several hidden hoards of precious metals, seems to indicate the planned and organized abandonment of the settlement; since the inhabitants never retrieved these hoards, it is believed they were killed or enslaved. Former excavations have yielded two tablets inscribed in Cypro-Minoan and have confirmed the international character of its material culture, such as Minoan, Canaanite, Mycenaean, Sardinian, Hittite and Cypriot ceramics. The recent excavation-project aims to get a better understanding of the multicultural character of the site, especially against the background of the continuing discussion on migration, interaction and acculturation, which typifies the late 13th and early 12th centuries BC in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Pyla-Kokkinokremos was established at a time when the Late [Bronze Age collapse] reached its zenith, just a few decades prior to its eventual seemingly premeditated abandonment. Since the settlement was never reoccupied and has a lifespan of less than fifty years, Pyla has become a valuable ‘time capsule’ of the LC IIC-IIIA critical phase. Owing to these facts together with its ethnically amalgamated material, the archaeological data from Pyla-Kokkinokremos surface as an exceptional opportunity to address the Late Bronze Age collapse and international contacts in the Levantine and Eastern Mediterranean world.