The Kings of Kition — Phoenician Cyprus and the traces still found by archaeologists in Larnaca

Larnaca is for most tourists an airport and a beach near the hotel. Few know that beneath the modern city lies one of the most important Phoenician cities of the ancient world: Kition — whose history dates back to 1400 BC and which for 600 years was ruled by Phoenician kings from the line of Tyre.

Kition (Κίτιον) gave its name to the entire island in Semitic languages — the Hebrew "Kittim" (כִּתִּים) in the Bible means the island of Cyprus or the peoples of Cyprus. It was through Kition that Cyprus entered the Near Eastern consciousness as the "island beyond the sea."

Who were the Phoenicians and why did they come to Cyprus

The Phoenicians (Lat. Phoenices, Gr. Φοίνικες) were merchants, sailors, and settlers from the coast of modern Lebanon and Syria (Tyre, Sidon, Byblos). In the 1st millennium BC, they created the most extensive trade network of the ancient world — from Carthage (Tunisia) through Sardinia, Sicily, Malta to Gades (Cadiz, Spain).

Cyprus was a treasure trove for the Phoenicians: copper (hence the Latin name "Cuprum" → Cyprus), cedar wood for shipbuilding, grain, olive oil. The first Phoenician settlements on Cyprus date back to around 900 BC, but the dominance of Kition as a Phoenician city — after 820 BC, when King Pygmalion of Tyre (brother of the legend of Pygmalion — the sculptor) sent colonists.

The Kition Dynasty — 600 years of Phoenician kings

List of known kings of Kition from inscriptions:

• Baalmelek I — around 470 BC. The first Phoenician inscription from Kition mentioned by name.
• Azubaal — son of Baalmelek. Inscription on a sarcophagus found in 1879.
• Baalmelek II — around 425 BC. His inscriptions on coins are the only evidence of Kition’s own mint.
• Pumiyathon (Pygmalion) — around 361–312 BC. The last king of Kition. He supported the Persian king Artaxerxes III against Alexander the Macedonian — a political mistake. After Alexander's death in 323 BC, Ptolemy I conquered Cyprus and eliminated all local "kingdoms," including Kition, in 312 BC.

The Kition dynasty lasted at least 150 years in documented form. They used the Phoenician language (Semitic alphabet, read from right to left), religion: the cult of Astarte (equivalents: Phoenician goddess of love and fertility = Greek Aphrodite).

Excavations in Larnaca — what was found

The first systematic excavations in Kition were conducted by the Cypriot Department of Antiquities from the 1960s, later supported by French and Swedish missions.

Main discoveries:

Area II — Temple of Astarte: Discovered in 1963. A large bronze temple (13th–9th centuries BC) with altars, cisterns for animal blood, votive storage rooms. Over 10,000 cult objects were found: figurines, amulets, ceramics. Today: partially visible excavation site on Kimonos Street.

Area III — Metalworking Workshops: Furnaces for copper smelting from the 13th century BC. Crucibles, ore fragments, tools. Confirm the thesis that Kition was a center for copper processing, not just its trade.

Chrysopolitissa Cemetery: Phoenician sarcophagi from the 5th–4th centuries BC. One of the sarcophagi contained a Phoenician inscription with a royal name — a key document.

Coins with inscriptions: In the collections of the Cyprus Museum — silver coins with the image of Baalmelek II, Phoenician inscription. One of the few preserved coins from the autonomous mint of Kition.

Museums with Kition collections

Larnaca Municipal Museum — Kimonos Street (GPS: 34.921°N, 33.638°E). Ceramics, figurines, coins from Kition excavations. Entrance: 2.50 EUR. Small but well described.

Cyprus Museum in Nicosia — the largest collection of Phoenician artifacts from Kition outside the excavation site.

British Museum (London) — part of the collections from 19th-century excavations ended up there before the regulation of export of cultural property. Collection available online in the BM database.

Philosophical legacy — Zenon of Kition

Kition is not only a political history. Around 334 BC, Zenon (Ζήνων) was born in Kition — the founder of the Stoic school, one of the most important philosophers of antiquity. Zenon was the son of a Phoenician-Cypriot merchant. In his youth, he set out for Athens, where he studied under Crates of Thebes, and then created his own philosophical school — Stoicism — on the Stoa Poikile ("Painted Colonnade") in the Athenian Agora.

Stoicism (tranquility in the face of fate, virtue as the only good, reason as a guide to life) became the dominant philosophy of the Roman Empire. Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca — Stoics. It all started with a Cypriot-Phoenician merchant from Kition.

A monument to Zenon stands in the center of Larnaca near the city hall (GPS: 34.921°N, 33.638°E).

Kition today — what to see

Practical places:

• Kition excavation site — Kimonos Street. Fragments of walls and temples visible behind a mesh. Entrance 2.50 EUR.
• Agios Lazaros Church (GPS: 34.919°N, 33.638°E) — built according to tradition on the site of the tomb of Lazarus (who, according to Cypriot tradition, fled to Kition after being resurrected). Late Byzantine, 11th century. Crypt with the "tomb of Lazarus" — free entrance.
• Salt Lake in Larnaca — according to legend: Aphrodite turned a vineyard of an unfriendly gardener into a salt lake. Today a bird reserve (flamingos in winter). GPS: 34.885°N, 33.609°E.

Hotels near the center of Larnaca and the Kition Museum — for tourists combining beaches with Phoenician history — book on CyprusBooker filter "Larnaca center" or "Larnaca Old Town".