Idalion prospered and became so wealthy that it was listed as the first among the ten Cypriot kingdoms on the prism (many-sided tablet) of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon (680–669 BC).

The east acropolis on Moutti tou Arvili Hill functioned as a sacred centre and included the Temples of Apollo, Aphrodite and of other gods.

The tablet also shows that the last king, Stakyspros, was democratic in governing by decisions taken with a council of citizens and the resulting documented laws discovered in the temple of Athena.

Cypro-Syllabic script (11th to 2nd century BC) was deciphered based on the Cypriot-Phoenician bilingual text of Idalion which is now in the British Museum's collection.

[5] Starting with the Cypriot-Phoenician bilingual text of Idalion (a dedication to the god Reshef Mikal – identified as Apollo Amyklos – 4th century BC), George Smith carried out a first attempt at interpretation in 1871, later developed and improved, thanks also to the Idalion Tablet, by the Egyptologist Samuel Birch (1872), the numismatist Johannes Brandis (1873), the philologists Moritz Schmidt, Wilhelm Deeke, Justus Siegismund (1874) and the dialectologist H.L.

[7] Off and on between 1867 and 1875, Luigi Palma di Cesnola, antiquarian, treasure hunter and American and Russian consul to the Ottoman government of Cyprus dug at Idalion.

Noting that a structure on the East Acropolis had been uncovered he was informed by locals that they had looted a large number of bronze objects including "Helmets, swords, spear-heads, etc" from there.

[8][9] In 1868 and 1869 R. Hamilton Lang, the British Consul, commissioned local workers to look for antiquities on the East Acropolis (Mouti tou Arvili) later supervising himself.

While not a professional archaeologist, being self trained, he used surveys and systematic excavation techniques, unlike his treasure hunting predecessors, locating a number of shrines.

Their primary work was a complete excavation of the upper portion of the West Acropolis (Ambelleri) finding a fortified sanctuary of Anat-Athena.

They also made soundings in the surrounding terrace, finding the royal palace of Idalion, and excavated a number of tombs, which ranged from the Cypro-Archaic to the Hellenistic periods in date.

The tablet records a contract between "the king and the city" and mentions a reward given to a family of physicians for providing free health services to casualties during the siege of Idalion by the Persians.