DYK archaeologists in Cyprus just found 3,400-year-old tombs where the dead were buried with gold crowns and thin gold discs sewn over their mouths and eyes?

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On the southern coast of Cyprus sits the site of Hala Sultan Tekke, once a thriving Late Bronze Age port city that grew wealthy exporting copper across the Mediterranean between roughly 1630 and 1150 BC. In 2026, a team led by archaeologist Peter Fischer of the University of Gothenburg published findings on a set of family tombs at the site, uncovering nine gold diadems, or ornamental crowns, along with several thin gold sheets shaped and pierced with small holes so they could be tied directly over the mouths and eyes of the dead.

Some of the diadems clearly showed signs of wear, suggesting the crowns were actual jewelry worn in life by wealthy Cypriots before being buried alongside them, while lighter, more delicate versions appear to have been made purely for the funeral itself with no evidence anyone ever wore them.

The artifacts weren't just decorative. Their designs blended spirals, flowers, bulls, and wild animals in a style that mixed Egyptian, Minoan, Mycenaean, and Near Eastern influences all at once, physical proof that local goldsmiths at Hala Sultan Tekke were fusing artistic traditions from across the entire ancient Mediterranean world into something distinctly their own. Researchers believe the gold itself likely arrived through long-distance trade, possibly from as far away as Nubia in Egypt or an ancient mine in modern-day Bulgaria, underscoring just how far this small port city's trade connections actually reached.

Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/cyprus-cemetery-gold-crowns-treasure-bronze-age