TAMASSOS
(Politiko) Cyprus.
In the copper
mining area SW of Nicosia. The ruins of a large town
lying on the left bank of the river Pediaios extend on the
top and over the N slopes of a hill overlooking the rich
Pediaios valley below. The site is now partly occupied by
the village of Politiko. The town consisted of two parts,
the acropolis and the lower town. The acropolis is believed to lie on top of the hill to the S of the town, where now stands the village elementary school. Remains of the city wall can still be traced for part of its course. The
necropolis extends N and W.
Tamassos, one of the ancient kingdoms of Cyprus
was probably the Homeric Temese. Nothing is known of
its origin but it certainly succeeded a Late Bronze Age
settlement in the area, the best known one being on the
other side of the river on a height due N of Pera village. A Late Bronze Age necropolis, however, exists at
Lambertis, a small hill due SE of the ancient town and
E of the Monastery of Haghios Herakleidios. Owing
mainly to the existence of copper mines, the area of
Tamassos was inhabited even earlier. The city naturally
owed its prosperity to these mines, as has been stressed
by ancient writers.
Very little is known of the history. On the prism of
Esarhaddon (673-672 B.C.) is mentioned the name
Atmesu, king of Tamesu (Admetos, king of Tamassos),
were the identification certain. The earliest known historical event goes back to the middle of the 4th c. B.C.,
when Pasikypros, king of Tamassos, sold his kingdom
for 50 talents to Pumiathon, king of Kition, and retired
to Amathous, where he spent his old age. Later on we
hear again of Tamassos when this city was taken away
from Pumiathon by Alexander the Great and presented
to Pnytagoras, king of Salamis. Thereafter it is frequently mentioned (
Strab. 14.684; Ptol. 5.14.6; Plin.
HN 7.195; Steph. Byz.). Tamassos is one of the Cypriot
cities mentioned in the list of the theodorokoi from
Delphi (early 2d c. B.C.). The city flourished mainly
from archaic to Graeco-Roman times; in Early Christian
times it became the seat of a bishop.
The worship of Apollo and of the Mother of the
Gods at Tamassos is attested by epigraphic or archaeological evidence. The Sanctuary of Apollo may be located to the NE of the town by the left bank of the river Pediaios. It was near here in 1836 in the bed of the
river that a bronze statue of Apollo was found. Its head
only has been preserved. Known as the Chatsworth head,
it is now in the British Museum. The Sanctuary of the
Mother of Gods may be located just inside the N city
wall. From inscriptions or from literary sources we
learn of the worship of Aphrodite, of Dionysos, of
Asklepios, and of Artemis, but nothing is known of
their sites.
There are no coins attributed to Tamassos and nothing is known of the existence of a gymnasium or of a
theater though a town of this importance should have had both.
The town site is practically unexcavated but two imposing royal built tombs, one with two chambers, dating
from the archaic period, were excavated in 1889. These
tombs had been looted long before their excavation but
both are well preserved.
The first tomb has a stepped dromos, the sides of
which are revetted with well-dressed stones. The facade
is beautifully molded. On either side of the stomion
the walls are decorated with a pilaster surmounted by
Proto-Ionic capitals of extremely fine workmanship. The
chamber is rectangular; its side walls are built of large
ashlar blocks; the roof is saddle-shaped and made of
two huge slabs resting on the side walls and leaning
against each other. Along the rear wall there is an open
sarcophagus.
The second tomb, near the first, is very much the
same construction but it has a more elaborate decoration imitating wood carvings. A stepped dromos leads
down to the entrance. The two chambers have molded
saddle-shaped roofs imitating wooden logs, which are
supported on a molded beam running lengthwise at the
top of the roof. Along the rear wall of the back chamber
there is a sarcophagus. The first chamber is provided
with two square niches in the shape of false doors. On
the upper part of these doors a door-lock is sculptured
in stone: four vertical projections through which a bar
has been pushed horizontally.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
M. Ohnefalsch-Richter,
Kypros, the
Bible and Homer (1893); Alfred Westholm, “Built
tombs in Cyprus,”
Opus. Arch. 2 (1941) 36-39
PI; Olivier
Masson, “Kypriaka I. Recherches sur les antiquités de
Tamassos,”
BCH 88 (1964) 199-238
MPI; id., “Kypriaka. VIII—Deux statuettes de bronze de Tamassos,”
BCH 92 (1968) 402-9
I; H.-G. Buchholz, “Politiko-Tamassos 1971,”
Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus (1972) 183-86
I; id., “Tamassos, Zypern 1970-72,”
AA (1973) 295-388
MPI.
V. Karageorghis, “Chroniques des Fouilles et Découvertes Archéologiques à Chypre en 1970,”
BCH 95
(1971) 418-21
I, and thereafter yearly under the heading
Fouilles; K. Nicolaou, “Archaeological News from Cyprus 1970,”
AJA 76 (1972) and yearly under the heading
Excavations. K. NICOLAOU