[2][3] The Swedish Cyprus Expedition, led by Einar Gjerstad, excavated Agia Eirini during november 1929.

During the summer of 1929, the Swedish Cyprus Expedition was visited by the priest Papa Propkopios.

He decided to visit the museum in Nicosia and brought the upper part of a terracotta statue from the beginning of the sixth century B.C.

The figures were lying and standing, grouped in the form of a semicircle, reminiscent of a theatre.

[4] In the beginning, the sanctuary consisted of a complex of rectangular houses with walls built of mud brick on solid stone foundations of rubble.

The excavators had the impression that the cult was an agrarian one that worshipped deities who protected the crops and cattle and filled the store-rooms with corn, wine, olives, honey, and vegetables.

The excavators did not find the official cult object but pointed out that the deity could have been worshipped in the shape of a bull, which is representative of the cult’s character of fertility since bulls are connected with fertility.

Instead of a closed and roofed cult house with other buildings together creating a rectangular complex, the new sanctuary was an open temenos of irregular shape surrounded by a peribolos wall of red earth.

The majority of the votive offerings from this period were terracotta bulls which were placed around the altar.

The altar was covered with layers of ash, carbonized matter as well as animal bones.

The temenos area remained as before but the peribolos walls were heightened and a new, rectangular pillar was erected as the new altar.

[5] Because the excavators found figures with bull’s masks these were interpreted as priests, which may be a clue to how at least some of the cult’s rituals were performed.

The votives consist mostly of terracotta statues of different sizes which were arranged around the altar in semicircles.

Much later, a small church for Ayia Irini (Holy Peace) was built on the same site.

[5] Later, in modern times, the sanctuary was forgotten and became a field until the day when Papa Prokopios realized that he had grown his corn on top of ancient terracotta sculptures.