Note to self, when someone asks you if you’re sure about going to Choirokoitia on your last morning in Cyprus or if you would prefer to go to a donkey sanctuary, next time choose donkeys! Always choose donkeys!
Choirokoitia
There’s not much I can say about this UNESCO Heritage Listed Site that UNESCO can’t do better, so let’s quote them:
Located in the District of Larnaka, about 6 km from the southern coast of Cyprus, the Neolithic settlement of Choirokoitia lies on the slopes of a hill partly enclosed in a loop of the Maroni River. Occupied from the 7th to the 5th millennium B.C., the village covers an area of approximately 3 ha at its maximum extent and is one of the most important prehistoric sites in the eastern Mediterranean. It represents the Aceramic Neolithic of Cyprus at its peak, that is the success of the first human occupation of the island by farmers coming from the Near East mainland around the beginning of 9th millennium.
Excavations have shown that the settlement consisted of circular houses built from mudbrick and stone with flat roofs and that it was protected by successive walls. A complex architectural system providing access to the village has been uncovered on the top of the hill. The achievement of such an impressive construction, built according to a preconceived plan, expresses an important collective effort, with few known parallels in the Near East, and suggests a structured social organisation able to construct and maintain works of a large scale for the common good. A house consisted of several circular buildings equipped with hearths and basins arranged around a small courtyard where domestic activities took place. The houses belonged to the living, as well as to the dead who were buried in pits beneath the rammed earthen floors. Among the finds such as flint tools, bone tools, stone vessels, vegetal and animal remains, noteworthy are the anthropomorphic figurines in stone (one in clay), which point, together with funerary rituals, to the existence of elaborate beliefs. Since only part of the site has been excavated, it forms an exceptional archaeological reserve for future study.
It sounds pretty interesting, right? Unfortunately, this is one of those sites that’s really only interesting on paper. There’s not much to see at the site itself, apart from three replicated circular houses and some excavations.
Not to mention that if you visit in summer like I did and it’s 44 degrees C like it was when I visited you’ll be sweating carrots (Dutch phrase) all the way to the top of the hill to see some more excavations.
You’ll spend around twenty minutes in Choirokoitia and that’s it; there’s nothing more to see.
Conclusion
Don’t get me wrong: I really value the significance of this site. However, to suffer through visiting it on a hot summer’s day when there’s really not much to see wasn’t really my cup of tea. I would’ve rather seen the donkeys in a sanctuary close to Choirokoitia. That having been said, if you visit Cyprus during the cooler months; it might be worth stopping by the site on your way to Larnaca Airport. The admission fee is only 2,50 euro so no reason to skip it for the money; but if you have to choose between this site and donkeys, you might want to consider going to the donkeys.
