Archaeologists find 5,000-year-old jewellery workshop in Cyprus

Nicosia (Capital city, Cyprus), June 27 : Archaeologists have uncovered what appears to have been a jewellery workshop during excavations at a 5,000-year old settlement in Cyprus.

According to a report in Cyprus Mail, a dense concentration of the mineral picrolite in the west ridge of the cliff-top settlement indicates that the spot was a workshop for the production of the cruciform figurines and large pendants.

"The assemblage mainly consists of the raw picrolite material, possibly quarried from the Troodos Mountains rather than imported in pebble form from the Kouris River valley, many waste chips flaked from that raw material in order to reduce it to convenient form and a roughout for a probable figurine," according to a statement from the Antiquities Department.

"Many chipped stones occurred together with these picrolites," it added.

Researchers said that the archeological site bore a multitude of tool marks that showed how the artisan began to fashion what was probably meant to be a cruciform figure.

"The upper part of a delicate, cruciform figurine that still needed to be finished comes from another part of the West Ridge and it gives some idea of the capability of these Souskiou artisans," the statement mentioned.

The statement added that more investigations were required, but it was already clear that for the first time archaeologists would be able to reconstruct the stages of production of remarkable prehistoric Mediterranean artwork, from procurement to near-finished product.

ANI