Kition, the Larnaca of 3,000 years ago

Kition is where you best understand that Larnaca is more than a beach town. Beneath its streets lies one of the great city-kingdoms of Cyprus, and part of it can be seen in the open air, just over 1 km from St Lazarus.

What Kition was

According to the Larnaca Tourism Board, the ruins are the first clear evidence that Mycenaean Greeks arrived here in the 13th century BC and Phoenicians in the 9th. The Achaeans rebuilt the city at the end of the 13th century and ringed it with Cyclopean walls of huge stone blocks. The Phoenicians settled later, and Kition became a powerful city-kingdom with a fleet and a harbour exporting farm produce to Egypt, the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean.

In 312 BC Ptolemy I Soter occupied and destroyed it, though people went on living here into Christian times. The city saw the birth of Zeno of Kition, father of Stoicism, around 334 BC, and the death of the Athenian general Kimon in 449 BC; his bust stands on the Finikoudes promenade.

What you can see

The most interesting remains, for the board, are those of the temple of Aphrodite-Astarte, which it credits to the same Phoenician masons who built Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem, both from the 9th century BC. Nearby, Egyptian-style temples of the 18th dynasty were found, older than their Greek equivalents. At the ancient harbour there are drawings of ships carved into the walls, a detail I find lovely. The photos on this page show the low stone walls among palm trees and the site’s walkway.

It was one of the first sites the Department of Antiquities excavated after independence, in the early 1960s, and it’s included in the Aphrodite Cultural Route.

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The Classical harbour

The history the board publishes adds that, after the Assyrian and Persian conquests, a Phoenician dynasty ruled Kition until 312 BC and extended its power over neighbouring Idalion. Those kings built a great deal, including a harbour of the 5th and 4th centuries BC that came to light in the early 1990s in a rare and excellent state of preservation.

When to visit and what it costs

It opens Monday to Friday. From 16 September to 15 April, 8:30 to 16:00, and from 16 April to 15 September, 9:30 to 17:00. It’s closed at weekends and on some public holidays. Entry costs €2.50, and the site is wheelchair accessible, with disabled parking. It’s on Archiepiskopou Kyprianou Avenue.

If you are short on time, see the best tours in Kition and pick one that fits your day.

Combining it

I’d pair it with the Larnaca Archaeological Museum, about 500 m away, which holds many of the finds, and the Pierides Museum, 1 km off. If archaeology is your thing, the island’s sites are all in archaeological sites in Cyprus, and the city in Larnaca.

Where the bus does not go, a car does: compare car hire in Larnaca before you arrive rather than at the desk.

To sleep close to everything, search places to stay in Larnaca on Booking.com and filter by area before price.