First published: 01/05/05.

Solivagant 2.5

Choirokoitia

Choirokoitia (Inscribed)

Choirokoitia by Solivagant

No doubt someone will prove me wrong but most Neolithic WHS sites tend to be “Megalithic” (ie related to the placement of large stones for burial, ceremonial or “cultural” purposes eg Stonehenge/Maltese Temples. Strictly this term is non "period specific" and can be used equally for eg 20th century structures). There are few “Neolithic settlements” – perhaps because many of these were of a construction which left few remains or because the nature of the remains means that there is very little for the untrained eye to see – but this hasn’t stopped many other sites with little to see being inscribed!

Historic Orkney contains both the monumental tombs and stone circles of Orkney AND the dwelling of Scara Brae but, offhand, I can only think of Khirokitia (Choirokoitia or Hirokitia) in Cyprus as consisting solely of a Neolithic “settlement”. (Interestingly the perhaps more internationally famous Catalhoyuk in Turkey isn’t on that country’s Inscribed or Tentative list)

So this apparently “minor” site is in fact very significant and is well worth a visit. It lies just north of the Larnaka–Limassol motorway about half way between them. The booklet on sale at the entrance site is worth having to put some flesh on what at first seems a jumble of stones. After a while a pattern emerges of a significant village of some 60 circular stone huts (probably with wood/mud flat roofs) dating from 7th to 4th millennium BCE. A visit to the (excellent) Cyprus museum in Lefkosia (Nicosia) will help place the site in a wider context of the development of human occupation of Cyprus.

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