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Hala Sultan Tekke, a Late Cypriot Harbour Town

History of Excavations

A Late Cypriot Bronze Age town is situated in a field west of the mosque of Hala Sultan Tekke and the Larnaca Salt Lake. Excavations have been performed at this site by two British expeditions in 1897 and 1898. The Cypriot Department of Antiquities has rescued many finds from the site, particularly in 1968, when Vassos Karageorghis excavated Late Bronze Age tombs there. Swedish excavations under the direction of Paul Åström have been carried out there almost annually since 1971 (Åström et al. 1975-2007). Karin Nys became assistant-director of this mission in 2001. After the untimely death of Paul Åström in October 2008, she was put in charge of the post-excavation processing of all the unpublished Swedish excavation campaigns (1980-2005).

The Archaeological site

The town extends about 600 x 400 m (240 000 sqm), indicating that Hala Sultan Tekke was larger than Enkomi, but smaller than Kition. Trial trenches have shown that it extended down to the shores of the present Salt Lake.
        Several areas of the town have been excavated, the central area 8 (fig. 1) being the largest. A street, 4-5 m wide, runs through the town in a north to south direction. The house complexes (fig. 2) often consist of a courtyard surrounded by rooms. In front of the entrances to the houses there is often a paved platform, raised above the level of the street like the passage ways of Pompeii.
        The houses were either used as workshops or for living and commercial activities. Three bathrooms (fig. 3) with ashlar floors have been discovered. A large building with interior supports for pillars and an inner room may probably be identified as a sanctuary. A Triton shell was found in the building (Åström & Reese 1990). Another building with an inner Holy of Holies was probably also a sanctuary (fig. 4); connected with it a stoa was constructed dating from the late 12th century B.C. The houses were usually built of rough field stones and cut, irregular stones, sometimes also of regular ashlar blocks. There are traces of walls revetted with crushed limestone.
        The oldest remains of a settlement date back to the Middle Cypriote Bronze Age or c. 1600 B.C. The town was destroyed in c. 1190 B.C. and again in 1175 B.C and ceased to appear in the 11th century B.C. The site underwent a short revival in the Hellenistic period.

fig. 1.: Area 8	fig. 2: Building with ashlar walls
fig. 3: Bathroom with ashlar wall	fig. 4: A sanctuary

The finds

The finds give a vivid picture of the daily life. Stone masons worked there as well as smiths, jewellers, ivory workers, fishermen and potters. The stone work is sometimes of high quality. A stone basin is decorated with a bucranium in relief. The background preserves traces of a blue indigo paint. This is of art historical interest. The effect is the same as that of the Parthenon frieze where the background was blue. Moulds for casting bronze arrow heads, sickles (fig. 3) and jewellery and carved pieces of elephants' tusks were uncovered. A bull is skilfully drawn on an ivory disc (fig. 4) with a firm hand and a sense of three-dimensionality. Superbly decorated cylinder seals have been found in the town. The abundance of copper slag proves that copper was smelted at the site. Fishermen left net weights of lead and beach stone.
        A small hoard (fig. 5) contained exquisite gold jewellery, possibly the dowry of an Egyptian lady who married a Cypriote. A gold ring with bezel of lapis lazuli preserves an Egyptian female name: Nebuwy.
        The burial gifts of a 30 years old man from a shaft grave of c. 1175 B.C. included a necklace composed of objects of gold, agate, faience and lapis lazuli.

fig. 3: Mould for sickles in situ	fig. 4: Ivory disc with bull motif; present and original state	fig. 5: Gold hoard

Trade relations

The finds testify diverse and long-distance trade relations, demonstrated by fragments of Mycenaean amphoroid kraters and a variety of other shapes. Stirrup jars, some decorated with octopus motif, were imported from Crete. From Anatolia Grey Minyan ware and red burnished stemmed cups arrived. Lapis lazuli came from Afghanistan and so-called Canaanite jars - containing wine and sometimes indigo - were imported from Syria, Palestine, Egypt and possibly Cilicia. A silver bowl (fig. 6) was inscribed with cuneiform letters mentioning Akkuya, son of Yiptahad(d)u (e.g., Stieglitz 1984 and Puech 1986: 208-211). In 1992, a bronze statuette of a Syro-Palestinian smiting god was unearthed (Åström 1993).

fig.6: Silver bowl with cuneiform inscription as found	fig. 7: White PaintedWheel-made III amphora with sacred tree motif

Bio-environmental data

We have much information about the flora and the fauna. The animal bones have been identified as fragments of e.g., sheep, goat, pig, cattle and occasionally red deer. Wheat and barley were used to make bread. We have found carbonized remains of figs, olives, bullace plums, and most surprisingly citron, citrus medica. Citron is depicted on wall paintings at Thebes in Egypt in the 15th century B.C. Hitherto, the earliest physical remains of citron were discovered at Hala Sultan Tekke.

Copper

The economy was no doubt mainly based on the copper industry. Copper was as already mentioned smelted or melted at the site and many fine bronze objects were made there, viz. a pruning hook, a charcoal shovel, a so-called shepherd´s crook, a bull´s head and a magnificent trident to mention some of them. The copper objects were exported and exchanged for other goods

The harbour

The situation at the shores of a sheltered lagoon with an inlet from the sea was ideal. We can probably imagine that ships from all the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean once anchored there. A stele preserves a sketchy drawing of a ship (Öbrink 1979: 16, 73).
        It was Kyriakos Nicolaou and Hector Catling (1968; cf. Åström 1990) who first drew attention to the stone anchors along the outskirts of the present Salt Lake. Dan McCaslin (1980) has shown in his dissertation on stone anchors that these may be used as type indicators of trade relations. 41 stone anchors mostly reused in buildings have been published (Åström & Svensson 2007, .31-49)
        Underwater explorations outside Hala Sultan Tekke were performed in 1972, 1973 (Engvig & Åström 1975), 1977 (D. McCaslin 1978) and 1980 (Engvig & Beichmann 1984). In 1972 and 1973 several stone anchors and a Roman lead-stocked anchor were located and rescued. A map of the area was made. Concentration of pottery indicated buried shipwrecks. The pottery was mainly Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine. Fragments of amphorae from Kos and Chios were recognized. In 1976 and 1977 Dan McCaslin (1978) recovered at Cape Kiti a number of stone anchors dating from the Late Bronze Age and pottery of the 6th and 5th centuries, the Hellenistic, early Roman and early Byzantine times. He also located an ideal anchorage and proto harbour in that area (McCaslin 1978:132). Engvig and Beichmann (1984) surveyed the area in 1980 and suggested that a ship of the Classical period lies east of the lighthouse. They found and published a number of pottery fragments from various periods.
        Several Swedish geological investigations in the Larnaca area have been made by the Chalmers Institute of Technology in Göteborg. The different soil types have been characterized and identified (Lång et al. 1982; Stevens & Wedel 1983).
        John Gifford (1978) drilled a number of core holes in the Salt Lake and in the lakes south of it: Lake Patsalos, Lake Soros and Lake Orphani. The depth of a lagoon, which preceded the present Salt Lake, was 14.3 m below mean sea level fairly nearly the mosque. It was a swampy, brackish-water environment.
        At the edges of Lake Soros a low energy marine environment existed between 7 and 8 metres below present sea level as late as about 2800 B.C. Gifford has presented some C14 dates based on organic material found in the cores.
        The Salt Lake now lies 1.11 m below mean sea level, but according to Gifford the sea level was somewhat more than 3 m below its present position in 1300 B.C.
        Gifford, who was not able to make sections across the Salt Lake, bored holes which were between 4 and 16 metres deep. One would like to know more about the depth of the lakes to figure out the size of the ships which could sail through the inlet to the harbour. We cannot exclude the possibility that a deep channel from the sea to the lake was dug and kept free of mud for the passage of ships.
        Andreas Demetropoulos (1979) has examined the molluscs from the Swedish excavations and found shells which inhabit coastal lagoons. The presence of these shells at the settlement suggests according to him that at least part of the Salt Lake communicated with the sea creating a lagoon. Maps of the area may be found in Nicolaou´s Historical Topography of Kition (1976).

Palaeoenvironmental Reconstruction

An ongoing multidisciplinary project investigates the palaeoenvironmental evolution in the region of the Larnaca salt lake. A part of this project concerns the effectiveness of lead isotopes in pottery provenance research.

Prof. Dr em. P. Åström

Bibliography

P. Åström, 'An Inscribed Stone Anchor from Hala Sultan Tekke', Kypriake Archaiologia 2 (1990), 81-83.

– ' Hala Sultan Tekke et l'Égypte', in: Comptes rendus des séances de l´année 1992. Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris 1991, 877-882..

– 'A Syro-Palestinian Bronze Statuette of a Warrior from Hala Sultan Tekke', Journal of Prehistoric Religion 7 (1993), 4-7.

– 'Hala Sultan Tekke and Egypt'. Timelines. Studies in Honour of Manfred Bietak II (Orientalia Lovaniensia 149), Leuven-Paris-Dudley 2006, 73-76.

P. Åström, et al. 1975-2007. Hala Sultan Tekke 1-12 ( SIMA 45: 1-12), Göteborg, Jonsered, Sävedalen.

P. Åström & D. Reese, 'Triton Shells in East Mediterraean Cults', Journal of Prehistoric Religion 3-4 (1993), 4-14.

P. Åström & B. Svensson, ' Stone Anchors at Hala Sultan Tekke', in: P; Åström. P. & K. Nys (eds), Hala Sultan Tekke 12. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 45: 12), Sävedalen 2007, 31-49.

A. Demetropoulos, 1979, 'Some Notes on the Marine and Fresh-Water Molluscs Identified', in: U. Öbrink, Hala Sultan Tekke 5. Excavations in Area 22 1971-1973 and 1975-1978(Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 45:5), Göteborg 1979, 134-144.

O.T. Engvig & P. Åström, Hala Sultan Tekke 2. The Cape Kiti Survey (SIMA 45:2), Göteborg 1978.

O.T. Engvig & M. Beichmann, 'Underwater Activities and the Situation at Cape Kiti, Cyprus', Opuscula Atheniensia 20 (1984), 181-186.

J.A. Gifford,  Paleogeography of Archaeological Sites of the Larnaca Lowlands, Southeastern Cyprus. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Minnesota 1978.

L.-O. Lång, et al., The Stratigraphy Near Hala Sultan Tekke, Southwest of Larnaca, Cyprus. (Chalmers Tekniska Högskola. Göteborgs Universitet. Geologiska institutionen. Publ. 203). Göteborg 1982.

D. McCaslin, Hala Sultan Tekke 4. The 1977 Underwater Report (SIMA 45:4), Göteborg 1979.

D. McCaslin, Stone Anchors in Antiquity: Coastal Settlements and Maritime Trade-routes in the Eastern Mediterranean ca. 1600-1050 B.C. (SIMA 61), Göteborg 1980.

R.S. Merrillees, 'The Government of Cyprus in the Late Bronze Age', in: P. Åström (ed.), Acta Cypria 3 (SIMA-PB 120), Jonsered 1992..

K. Nicolaou, The Historical Topography of Kition (SIMA 43), Göteborg 1976.

K. Nikolaou & H.W. Catling, 'Composite Anchors in Late Bronze Age Cyprus', Antiquity 42: (1968), 225-229.

U. Öbrink, Hala Sultan Tekke 5. Excavations in Area 22 1971-1973 and 1975-1978 (SIMA 45: 5), Göteborg 1979.

E. Puech, 'L'origine de l'alphabet', Revue biblique 93 (1986), 161-213.

R. Stevens & P. Wedel (eds), Soil and Stratigraphical Investigations in the Larnaca Area, Southwestern Cyprus (International Study Projects. Chalmers Tekniska Högskola. Göteborgs universitet. Geologiska institutionen. Publ. B228), Göteborg 1983.

R.R. Stieglitz, 'The Ugaritic Inscription from Hala Sultan Tekke', Opuscula Atheniensia 15 (1984), 193.

 

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