Kition-Pampoula: ostraca of the 4th century BCE

The explanations distinguish finds, interpretations and open questions. Sources appear at the end of the page.

What the Department of Antiquities says

According to the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus page on Kition-Pampoula, the French mission excavated at the site in 2022, at the end of the season the number of ostraca reached 99, and all of them are dated to the 4th century BCE. Source 1.

What the number says

Ostraca are pottery sherds used as a writing surface. The statement that the number reached 99 at the end of the season gives a cumulative count: the details cited here do not say how many were found in the 2022 season itself and how many in earlier seasons, and they do not name the mission or its directors. 99 is also the count at one moment, the end of the 2022 season, not necessarily the number today. Source 1.

The 4th century and the 312 boundary

The 4th century BCE is the years 400-301 BCE. The Department of Antiquities' chronological table ends the Classical period in 312 BCE, so the century runs 11 years past the end of the Classical period in the table. The details cited here do not say whether any of the ostraca is later than 312. The article is placed in the Classical period, where most of the century falls, and the range of the 4th century is kept as worded and not shortened. Sources 1, 2.

What they show about administration

The question of what clay documents show about the kingdom's administration depends on their content, and the details cited here say nothing about the content: no language, no script and no kind of document. This page therefore does not decide whether they are administrative records, letters or something else. An answer needs the excavators' publication of the texts. This site also documents the sale of Tamassos to Kition in the second half of the 4th century and, in the Classical period, the use of a building at Idalion as an administrative centre for territory annexed to Kition, according to the Department of Antiquities.

Scope of reading: the Department of Antiquities pages cited here could not be opened for checking on 24 October 2026; the details from them follow notes taken from those pages at an earlier stage and were not re-checked. The mission's reports and the publication of the ostraca were not read, so this page gives no reading, translation or description of any ostracon.