You can find the ruins of Lambousa by taking the main coastal road from Kyrenia to the west towards Lapta, and upon seeing the signs for the now closed Mare Monte hotel, (apparently it’s a designated site for the next mass hotel tourism project), turn right down towards the coast. At the time of visiting there was a man in a little security hut at the bottom of this road, but we just parked up nearby, turned left and walked across the field to get to the site.
History of Lambousa
The city of Lambousa’s history is fascinating to say the least, and it has plenty of myths and legends attached to it, but it
The kingdom played perhaps an even more important time in history when the incumbent Lambousa king aided Alexander the Great during his siege of Tyre. He sent ships to help and was rewarded when the Persians left Cyprus. Lambousa then went on to become an important commercial area due to its favoured harbour location and was involved in the processing of all important copper for which Cyprus was revered.
There have since been two separate excavations of Lambousa which have attested to the historical and legendary aspect of this site. In the early 19th century a mix of decorative silverware, utensils and well preserved hand painted pottery were found by archaeologists and so called treasure-hunters. It was a superb find with many of the pieces bearing the Byzantine Imperial Stamp which means that they could have come from Constantinople, then capital of the Byzantine
Lambousa Tombs and Fish Tanks
Since the Turkish army have finally vacated most of this site it is now possible to see much more than in years gone by. Although sadly, despite efforts by the Department of Antiquities and archaeologists from Germany, it does suffer from deterioration due to the
On arriving at the headland you will find the remains of the Lambousa tombs or graves, some of which have been opened so that you can wander inside them quite freely. Once covered by earth all they would have revealed were hilly lumps, and to the untrained eye would not have really been perceived to be anything but. All these tombs were carved from the rock by hand and although the rock is pretty soft, you can imagine the work that would have gone into producing so many tombs, a lot of which are still covered to this day.
A maze of tombs can be seen, some low lying under the ground with others located on top of them, some with additional chambers perhaps for a whole family as well as some probably for children as they are quite small. Although very faint
Walking across the headland you can find what the majority believe to be a fish tank, however there have been claims that perhaps this was a Roman bath which would have been used for bathing – although we would prefer to think that it was used by hardworking fishermen rather than bathers! It is a testament to hard labour and skills whatever the true story, as at 27 x 14 metres it would have taken hard work to create it! The main fish tank would have been used to store the fish with channels and inlets feeding the tank with clean water via sluice gates to change the water periodically, to keep the fish fresh until ready to be eaten or sold. You can still see pretty much all of this structure to this day, and if you think about it it’s a great example of engineering capabilities during this time.
Walking further across the headland we were amazed to find ourselves walking across a small mosaic path – thousands of years old – it seemed more than slightly amiss that this has not been protected in any way! You can also look down to
We enjoyed our trip to Lambousa immensely – a huge piece of world history located on this island, which should be preserved for future generations to see. We highly recommend you visit if you have the opportunity.