Bronze Age · 17th century BC · Hala Sultan Tekke, Larnaca, Cyprus
Copper port on Cyprus is older than its excavators thought
Swedish archaeologists have found the first buildings at Hala Sultan Tekke from the 17th to the 15th century BC.
Official announcement
Hala Sultan Tekke, Cyprus Hala Sultan Tekke, the largest Bronze Age city known on Cyprus, was already a settlement with buildings in the 17th century BC. A Swedish expedition found walls there during the 2026 season. The walls stood in their original layers, with pottery from the 17th to the 15th century BC. Until now the oldest urban remains at the site dated from the 14th century BC.
The city lies beside the salt lake next to Larnaca airport, on the south-east coast of the island. In the Bronze Age the lake was a sheltered bay. The port on its shore covered up to 50 hectares. According to Cyprus's Department of Antiquities, it flourished for about five centuries and was abandoned around 1150 BC.
Walls and pottery in three older layers
Earlier excavations had turned up a few pieces of pottery older than the 14th century. None of them came from a layer of occupation. So they could not show whether people actually lived there.
The new finds come from three strata, numbered 4, 5 and 6, in City Quarter 1. Strata are the layers that build up on a site, one over another, as time passes.
Stratum 4 holds the usual Cypriot wares of the period, White Slip I and Base-ring I. It also has a few long spindle-shaped bottles, which the announcement attributes to Anatolia. In the two older strata those wares almost disappear. Pottery painted in red, black and white dominates instead.
This painted pottery is typical of the change from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age. On Cyprus that phase is called Middle Cypriot III.
Pottery from the Mycenaean world is absent from these layers. That fits the existing picture. In it, Mycenaean imports to the city peaked in the 14th and early 13th centuries BC.
Copper went out, goods came in from far away
Excavations at the site have found slag, copper ore, furnaces and crucibles. They are evidence of large-scale metalworking. The ore came down from the Troodos mountains, and the metal left through the harbour.
The Cypriot announcement says goods reached the city from Sardinia in the west to Afghanistan and India in the east. It says they also came from the Baltic to Nubia. Earlier seasons found a bowl from Sardinia, a vase from Crete, Baltic amber and lapis lazuli.
Who dug, and how much is left
Peter M. Fischer and Teresa Bürge of the universities of Gothenburg and Bern led the season, with Rainer Feldbacher. It ran in February, May and June 2026. Researchers from the Cyprus Institute worked on the human remains and on 2D and 3D documentation.
A Swedish team has dug at the site since 2010. In 2023 Fischer estimated that perhaps 10 per cent of the city had been excavated.
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