Khirokitia description and photos - Cyprus: Larnaca (Topic)

Khirokitia description and photos - Cyprus: Larnaca. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photographs and a map showing the nearest significant objects. The name in English is Khirokitia.

Photo and description

One of the oldest settlements in Cyprus, Choirokitia is located on the top of a gentle hill near Larnaca. It is believed that it was founded about 9 thousand years ago, in the Neolithic era. Due to its venerable age, this place was even included in the UNESCO Cultural Heritage List.

Almost nothing is known about the people who built Khirokitia. Their village is unlike any other that has ever existed on the island. Therefore, archaeologists even invented a separate name for this "mini-civilization" - the Neolithic pre-ceramic culture of Cyprus. As for the name of the city itself, it received the same name as the modern village located at the foot of this hill.

The settlement consisted of many round buildings, like residential, and household. Often several of these buildings were located very close to each other around a kind of courtyard. Since only small fragments of buildings have survived to this day, it was decided to restore some of them in order to clearly demonstrate what kind they had before. Therefore, four new houses were built right on the excavated foundations using ancient technology - from mud and stones. And before that it was believed that the roofs of the buildings had the shape of a dome, but recently scientists confidently declare that they were just flat.

One of the main features of this place is that its inhabitants buried the dead right in the floor of their houses. A stone staircase led to the top of the hill where Choirokitia was located, and a wall was erected around the entire settlement.

Local residents, and there were about six hundred of them, mainly growing cereals and cattle breeding. They also picked wild fruits. Surprisingly, some scholars state that rice was also grown in the settlement. Consequently, nine thousand years ago the island was a wet and swampy place, because this culture grows only in such conditions.

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Topic: Khirokitia description and photos - Cyprus: Larnaca.