The regular excavations at Pyrgos of the National Council for Researches of Rome (Institute for Technologies Applied to Cultural Heritage) started at Mavroraki in 1998 after three years of survey. The settlement GIS calculated extends on 30 hectares on western side of the modern village.
With the assistance of geophysical prospecting the building dimension was estimated to cover 4000sq.m. But, there aren't enough elements to affirm that it was a small "Palace" similar to the very famous palaces of Crete or a simple large multi industrial building. In the North excavated courtyard many superimposed floors of furnaces, benches, stone implements, tools and slag remains suggest that the place was used for metallurgical activities, probably for primary processing of raw copper.
Meanwhile a real coppersmith workshop was found on East side,
not far from the above­mentioned courtyard, communicating through a passage with a large room, where
it was processed the olive oil. The workshop was provided of
a mud oven­forge, supported by large slabs of calcarenite,
forming a sort of protection from fire.
On its back two stone anvils of andesite have been found
One of the two (30kg) is a curate implement similar to a modern anvil with a cutting on its "table" to shape blades, and could be considered the prototype of modern anvil, the most ancient found
Next the coppersmith workshop there is a large room (15x18m.) devoted to the production of olive oil that was stored in jars in the West wing of the same room.
The olive press system worked with a beam hung in wall, balanced on a stone base press positioned on a central bench (a sort of altar). Heavy holed weights of calcarenite, left at the end of the beam place, were probably hanged to help the pressing.
Before the pressing the olive past was worked in basalt mills and large mortars of calcarenite around found with their pestles.







The six storage jars positioned in the western side of the olive press room could contained from
500 to 300 litres of oil, but a second storage room discovered in 2003 suggests a larger estimation of the olive oil produced.

In the same room, on its northeastern corner, in 2003, came to light a peculiar laboratory for perfumes.The essences were obtained with the maceration system in olive oil.




A second large courtyard and a second coppersmith workshop have been discovered during the 2004 and 2005 excavations seasons intercommunicating with the olive press room throughout two doors, opened on the eastern and western ends of the southern wall.
The intact position of stone implements, anvils, hammers and clay mould (still in the furnaces) leave any doubt that the place was systemically organised for secondary copper processing, casting and refining of metal objects.

Beside the unique evidence of a 2000 BC complete copper production line, Pyrgos offers a rare evidence of the probable use of olive oil waste remains as fuel during metallurgical operations, due to the location of the copper working rooms around the olive press.
The multi industrial destination of Pyrgos' building has been confirmed by the discovery of other activities in the rooms located West to olive press, first of all the textiles production that is a very rare fact and could be estimated exceptional.
The room was provided of two large dying basins and possessed a complete apparatus for spinning and weaving objects.
A long line of mud loom weights (35) flanked by heavy stone weights lying at the centre indicated the position of a vertical loom.
The examination of the earth taken on floor and inside the holes of 35 spindle whorls has given important information on the fibres and colours used at the time.
Many lumps of coloured substance have been found everywhere. The most important and famous are the indigo and the purple.
­The purple extracted by the murex shells, became famous after the industrial Phoenician production in first millennium BC. An isolated heap of murex shells belonging probably to the Middle Bronze Age has been found in Crete some years ago and very recently chemical analyses have been recognised the use of purple on the wall paintings of Thera of the beginning of Late Bronze Age.
The shells of murexes found at Pyrgos have a characteristic hole on side to take the precious vein, confirming that the Pyrgos artisans possessed a full knowledge of the system to obtain purple.
Many lumps of Egyptian Indigo, the famous dark blue colour obtained by the leaves of indigofera argentea have been found in a bowl, and remains of an extraordinary system to fix this colour on textiles have been found in one spindle whorl. It consists in the spores of "Alga fucus"(still full of colour) that had the function to make indelible the colour on the fibres. This is so far the only evidence we have about the use of this system in Bronze Age.
With the help of a microscopy an incredible variety of vegetables fibres, especially wool, hibiscus and cotton, have been found in the earth entrapped in the spindle whorls. Almost all the fibres are dyed in different tonality of red, blue, green and yellow.
Almost all the fibres are dyed in different tonality of red, blue, green and yellow.
The textile room
During the excavation season of 2005 it was brought to light a secondary room organised for the production of wine, whose presence has been previously suggested by the founding of grapes seed and special jugs with pointed base containing remains of tartaric acid.
The room for wine production
During the excavation season of 2005 it was brought to light a secondary room organised for the production of wine, whose presence has been previously suggested by the founding of grapes seed and special jugs with pointed base containing remains of tartaric acid.
The last discovery of medicament compounds as opium, scamonea, calcochina and ephedrine, as well as multi bowls stone mortars to prepare cosmetics suggests that we are still at the beginning of our investigation and that many other information will come out continuing the excavations and the archaeometric researches at Pyrgos.
But it's the extraordinary connection of olive oil and metallurgy that open new possibilities on the ancient history of Mediterranean metallurgy, not forgetting that in Greek Mythology we have a link between olive oil and metallurgy in the myth of Eryctonios, son of Athena and Efestos.
This evidence makes of Pyrgos/Mavroraki one of the most important archaeological sites yet to have been discovered in Cyprus, with significance not merely for the history of metallurgy but for a better understanding of the role­-played by the production and use of olive oil in Early­Middle Bronze Age Cyprus.

2006 Map

2012 Excavation Results

Preliminary report of 2012 excavation season at Pyrgos /Mavroraki, Cyprus

According to the license by the Department of the Antiquities of Cyprus the area investigated was included in the grid squares A-B-C in 9-10-11, partly investigated in 2009. It is located on the natural terrace which originally stretched to 500 meters to the East bank of the Pyrgos, between the river and the prehistoric settlement. The area is limited to the South by the road which connects the villages of Pyrgos and Parrekklisha, to the East by a large courtyard next to the cult area, to North by the possible extension of the road that ran through the site from East - West, to West by an adjacent not investigated the room. - The purpose of the excavation in 2012 was to complete the setting in light of the room in the hope that it was a normal house, not a workshop. On the contrary, it was found that the room belongs to a building used and reused for a long time as workshop for different activities. In fact, the large number of stone tools found in the room leaves no doubt on the industrial use of the room, which should be connected to other rooms used as normal houses. This suggestion is due to the presence of a door on the West side of the inner wall, which leads to a second room not fully investigated. A joint Italian team of: CNR (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche) – MIBAC-GDA (Ministero per le Attività Culturali Direzione Generale delle Antichità), under the directorship of Maria Rosaria Belgiorno, conducted the 2012 season of investigations at the Early-Middle Bronze Age settlement of Pyrgos-Mavrorachi (Lm): 3 weeks in May, 3 weeks in July, 3 weeks October - November. Excavation resumed in West-Southern sector close to the main road that connects Pyrgos Parekklisha villages. On the southern side of the main road of the prehistoric site, the team investigated a building that, according to the electrical prospecting consists of two rooms. Different groups of students of the University of Chieti-Pescara “Gabriele D’Annunzio” and of the University of Naples “L’Orientale” worked as volunteers. The investigation has brought to light the room of a building that extends to the West according to the Southern and Northern main walls that continue in that direction. The dig identified different episodes of occupation and rebuilding of architectural structures finally abandoned in the Middle Bronze age II. According to the distribution of the wall foundation, the stone tools and the ceramics, it seems that the area was first occupied during the Neolithic period, most likely a date not far from the Skyllourokambos Pareklisha site one. It was abandoned for a long time, reoccupied at the end of Chalcolithic period, and inhabited without solution of continuity until the Middle Bronze II. Due to the exceptional rainy season of October-November 2012, that has flooded many times the site, only one of the two rooms was completely excavated. The room (8x6 meters), includes a smaller detached room (4x3 meters) located almost in the centre. The stone foundations of the walls, insist directly on the bedrock, composed of emerging basalt rocks and pillow lava. An abandonment assemblage of flints, querns and stone tools scattered around a large basalt slab, secured to the floor with stone pebbles, was found against the wall of the interior room. While a large bench full of stone tools is in the middle of the interior room and a second bench is in the western sector. Contents comprise a different artefactual assemblage from that found elsewhere in association with excavated buildings. Chief amongst the material are fifty undecorated stone palettes for cosmetics with moulded edges (digital microscope photos detects traces of colour and organic material), hundreds of stone tools (basalt, andesite and quartz), lumps of ochre (a peculiar ingredient in cosmetics and pharmaceutical compounds since the Neolithic), and picrolite objects found in association with many maritime shells. Remains of picrolite-working also occurred at Pyrgos in previously excavated areas, moreover the sequence of the items found in 2012 suggests that a specialist workshop in processing picrolite was arranged there. It includes 2 complete “comb” pendants, 2 unfinished comb pendants, 1 complete ring, 1 large broken ring, 1 (4 cm) roundel, 1 spindle whorl, 4 large polished and processed plate lumps, 2 pieces with signs of process, 3 splinters of wasting processing, 3 raw nuggets. By the same laboratory should come other items found in 2009 outside the walls of the “workshop”, which consist in 2 broken comb pendants and 2 beads, for a total of 24 items. The pottery fragmentary assemblage belongs mainly to basins and bowls (Red Pol I-III) and to a large Red Pol III storage jar positioned at the entrance of the small room. Its typology and the absence of Red Pol IV suggest a continuity of occupation between the Early Bronze Age I and the Middle Bronze Age I. Architectural evidence: - The natural terrace formed by merging blocks of Pillow lava and Basalt spans deep external for 6 metres on all the southern limits of the expropriated area of the excavation, probably eroded and almost completely brought to light some years ago by the work to pave the road to Pareklisha. - The terrace was partially cleaned in 2009: in that occasion the southeastern corner of the room investigated in 2012 was discovered. On the floor of the terrace have been found, some post holes, pits and few stones remain of circular structures embedded in the bedrock. More pits and post holes have been found in the courtyard on South surrounded by a massive wall running East West, embedded in the bedrock. - The new room found in 2009 seemed to belong to the Early Bronze Age and abandoned along with the Middle Bronze age. The huge dimensions of the stone foundations of the Eastern and Northern (a portion of 2 metres) walls suggested that the building was of some importance and that it was completely detached from the other buildings previously highlighted. Moreover, the main entrance was on the continuation of the inner road (which is currently occupied by a large collapse of another close building), that separates the cult place by the industrial area. - The room has a unique internal division, which seems to divide the working area from a small open air internal court, positioned at the centre. Considering the peculiarity of the recovered materials, the industrial character of the room aligns with the commercial destination of the site and the perfume factory discovered in 2004

2012 Map

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