Two Large Buildings Discovered in Agora at Nea Paphos

News December 30, 2014

SHARE:
Ceramics-Agora-Polish-Team
(E. Papuci-Wladyka)

KRAKOW, POLAND—Traces of two large public buildings have been found in Nea Paphos, an ancient city founded in Cyprus at the end of the fourth century B.C. “One of them was probably a temple, the other probably served as a warehouse. Both were very well built,” Ewdoksia Papuci-Wladyka of Jagiellonian University told Science & Scholarship in Poland. The buildings are in the city’s agora, or central gathering place. An ancient well was found at its eastern entrance. “When the well was no longer in use, it served as the trash: it was mainly filled with broken vessels and kitchenware. Inside we also found fragments of statues and coins,” she said. The vessels, many decorated with red, glossy surface slips, date to the Hellenistic period. “They testify to the wealth of the residents of Paphos.” For more on the archaeology of ancient Greek agoras, see "Attention Shoppers."

  • Features November/December 2014

    The Neolithic Toolkit

    How experimental archaeology is showing that Europe's first farmers were also its first carpenters

    Read Article
    (Courtesy Rengert Elburg, Landesamt für Archäologie Sachsen)
  • Features November/December 2014

    The Ongoing Saga of Sutton Hoo

    A region long known as a burial place for Anglo-Saxon kings is now yielding a new look at the world they lived in

    Read Article
    (© The Trustees of the British Museum/Art Resource)
  • Letter From Montana November/December 2014

    The Buffalo Chasers

    Vast expanses of grassland near the Rocky Mountains bear evidence of an extraordinary ancient buffalo hunting culture

    Read Article
    (Maria Nieves Zedeño)
  • Artifacts November/December 2014

    Ancient Egyptian Ostracon

    Read Article
    (Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL, UC15946)