Bronze Age · 17th–15th century BC · Hala Sultan Tekke, Larnaca District, Cyprus
Oldest buildings found at Bronze Age copper port in Cyprus that traded with Afghanistan
The 2026 season at Hala Sultan Tekke found buildings and pottery from the 17th to 15th centuries BC, pushing the city's documented history back by up to two centuries.
Official announcement
Hala Sultan Tekke, Cyprus Archaeologists have found the oldest known buildings at Hala Sultan Tekke, a Bronze Age harbour city near Larnaca in Cyprus. The buildings and the pottery found with them date from the 17th to the 15th century BC. That pushes the documented history of the site back by up to two centuries.
The Department of Antiquities of the Republic of Cyprus announced the results of the 2026 season. Excavations ran in February, May and June. Professor Peter M. Fischer of the University of Gothenburg and Professor Teresa Bürge of the Universities of Gothenburg and Bern led the Swedish mission. Local and international specialists and students made up the rest of the team.
Layers older than the 14th century BC
Until now, the oldest city remains at the site dated from the 14th century BC. Earlier campaigns had turned up a few stray sherds from the late Middle Bronze Age and early Late Bronze Age. None of them came from layers of the same period.
This season the team worked in City Quarter 1. For the first time, they found stratified buildings and datable pottery from the 15th to the 17th centuries BC. Stratified means the remains lay in their original, undisturbed layers, so they can be placed in order. The finds belong to Strata 4, 5 and 6 of the site's sequence.
Stratum 4 held several pottery types. These include White Slip I ware in single-colour and two-colour styles, Base-ring I ware, Bichrome Wheel-made ware, and Black and Red Slip wares. The only imports from this phase are spindle bottles of Anatolian Red Lustrous Wheel-made ware.
No Aegean pottery turned up in Stratum 4. That fits earlier findings at the site. Goods from the Mycenaean world arrived in large numbers only in the 14th and early 13th centuries BC.
Strata 5 and 6 look different. White Slip I and Base-ring I wares almost disappear, apart from a few early forms of each type. Instead, pottery from the shift between the Middle and Late Bronze Age dominates. Some of it belongs to the Middle Cypriot III period. Red-on-Red, Red-on-Black and White Painted IV to VI wares make up much of this material.
A copper town with trade across continents
Hala Sultan Tekke covered up to 50 hectares, which makes it the largest known Bronze Age site on Cyprus. The city was founded by the 17th century BC and thrived for about five centuries. It was destroyed and abandoned around 1150 BC.
Copper made the city rich. Slag heaps, copper ore, furnaces and crucibles show that workers smelted metal on a large scale. Ore came down from the Troodos Mountains and was processed in the town. The metal then left through a well-protected harbour.
Merchants from across the Mediterranean and beyond traded there, especially in the 14th and 13th centuries BC. Imported goods reached the city from Sardinia in the west and from Afghanistan and India in the east. Others came from the Baltic in the north and Nubia in the south. Finds from the later city include a bird-headed female figurine and a bovine figurine (a rhyton), both dated 1350–1300 BC.
The team also carried out further studies in the cemetery. Dr Rainer Feldbacher assisted the two directors. From the Cyprus Institute, Professor Kirsi Lorentz and Dr Yuko Miyauchi handled the bioarchaeology. Professor Sorin Hermon made 2D and 3D records and ran non-destructive tests on materials.
According to the announcement, the new pottery groups mark the earliest settlement documented at the site so far. They give researchers a timeline and cultural setting for how a small early community grew into one of the major trading cities of the Bronze Age Mediterranean.
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