PAPHOS, CYPRUS—The Cyprus Mail reports that a rampart enclosing an area of more than 2,000 square feet has been discovered in the monumental tumulus of Laona in southwestern Cyprus by a team of researchers from the University of Cyprus, the Cyprus University of Technology, and Siena's University for Foreigners. The structure was made with 15-foot-thick walls of mudbricks and stones set on a base of leveled bedrock, river pebbles, and soil mixed with broken pottery, and then covered with a mound at the end of the fourth century or early in the third century B.C. So far, the researchers have identified two facing staircases on one wall, and a third staircase on the tallest surviving section of the rampart. The researchers will continue to investigate the tumulus and try to identify the expert engineers and skilled work force who might have built it. To read about discoveries from Classical-era Cyprus, go to "Living the Good Afterlife."
