Ancient Cyprus — Larnaca
Archaeology, trade and the earliest visible layers. A source-linked guide to Larnaca.
Chronology
A city of layers
Kition records Mycenaean activity in the 13th–11th centuries BC and Phoenician settlement in the 9th century BC. Start with Kition Archaeological Site, then read the present-day waterfront as the next layer of the city.
Myth, trade and people
Kition was a port city long before modern Larnaca. Mycenaean activity is dated to the 13th–11th centuries BC; Phoenician settlement followed in the 9th century BC. Cyclopean walls, sanctuaries and the harbour make trade, worship and seafaring part of the same archaeological story. The Phoenician goddess Astarte was honoured here; later Greek and Roman readers associated related Cypriot fertility traditions with Aphrodite. That association is cultural history, not proof that a Greek myth happened at a particular excavation.
Kition also produced Zeno, the philosopher traditionally identified as the founder of Stoicism. The Athenian commander Cimon died during the siege of Kition in 450 BC according to ancient tradition; Ptolemy I captured and destroyed the city in 312 BC. Read these names against the ruins: they connect a local port with wider Mediterranean politics, philosophy and trade.