Agios Ioannis/Vretsia-Roudias: completion of 2025 excavation
The Department of Antiquities, Deputy Ministry of Culture has announced the completion of the 2025 excavation season at the prehistoric site of Agios Ioannis/Vretsia-Roudias. The excavation was conducted from September 28 to October 10, 2025, by the archaeological team of the Department of History and Archaeology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), led by Assistant Professor Maria Ntinou. The project is funded by the Special Account for Research Funds, AUTH. The team included senior researcher Dimitris Kyriakou, AUTH PhD candidate Andreas Samouris, and postgraduate students Paraskevi Kalogiannidou, Alexandra Fakiri, and Alexandros Kateris.
During the 2025 season, research was focused on the Aceramic Neolithic site of Upper Roudias and the earlier Lower Roudias site, which are located in the eastern and western parts of the Roudias terrace.
At Upper Roudias, a 9m2 exploratory trench was excavated in an area where the 2024 geophysical survey had indicated the presence of a stone structure. The trench revealed stones arranged in a curved formation. Numerous ground stone tools and knapped stone artifacts were recovered from the excavated layers. The stone structure and artifacts show similarities to the previously excavated circular building at Upper Roudias. Among the finds from 2025, a fragment of a large engraved figurine made of picrolite stood out. The 2025 excavation data at Upper Roudias set new research objectives for further investigation and documentation.
At Lower Roudias, excavation in stratigraphic squares I12 and J12 reached the natural bedrock (Figure 5). The lowermost layers yielded numerous knapped and ground stone artifacts. A full stratigraphic mapping and documentation of all excavation profiles at Lower Roudias were completed.
Sources and images: Department of Antiquities of Cyprus
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