THE FRAMEWORK OF THE RESEARCH PROGRAMME SAVING PREHISTORIC ANTIQUITIES UNDER THREAT, IN A BID TO HIGHLIGHT THE IMPORTANCE OF PRESERVING HERITAGE AND PRESENT THE PAST, CURRENT AND FUTURE ACTIONS TAKEN IN THIS REGARD.

Marina Solomidou-Ieronymidou, director, Department of Antiquities, welcomed guests and invited Marios Demetriades, transport, communication and works minister, Cyprus, to the stage to address the gathering, who was followed by Peter Reinhardt, ambassador to Cyprus, Switzerland, and Despina Pilides, curator of antiquities, Department of Antiquities, setting the stage for a lecture by Jean-Robert Gisler, professor, University of Fribourg and Berne, Switzerland, entitled Insights into the new challenges in protecting cultural property.

Guests were also invited to attend the opening ceremony of the exhibition Archaeology and Memory: Excavations in the Districts of Keryneia and Ammochostor, which presented, for the first time, to the public antiquities that were excavated before 1974 at prehistoric sites in the areas that are currently not under the effective control of the government of Cyprus.

The programme continued the next day with a workshop held under the theme Four Decades of Hiatus in Archaeological Research in Cyprus: Towards Restoring the Balance, in Nicosia.

Organised at the capital's Medieval Hall of Kastelliotissa, the event drew the spotlight, among others, on Cyprus Museum's prehistoric archaeological record, the measures taken and problems faced in the investigations on the illicit trade of antiquities, the north coast of the island in the Bronze Age, actions taken in order to protect and preserve the deep time prehistory of Cyprus, mountain archaeology between the two coasts, the country at the dawn of a new era, Red Polished Philia pottery production, the political division of a culturally unified island, the reappraisal of the central north coast, interpreting settlement function, the Agios Sozomenos excavations and phlamoudhi in archaeology, history and art.

The research programme Saving Prehistoric Antiquities Under Threat is co-funded by Cyprus and the Swiss Federal Office of Culture and is conducted under the aegis of the Department of Antiquities. The three-year project is expected to be completed by August 2017.