Uninhabited since the 15th century, recent excavations have revealed it once held a sanctuary dedicated to Apollo in the late Hellenistic period.

The island which lies 280 metres from the shore of western Cyprus has been uninhabited since the 14th or 15th century.

[2] Geologically the island consists of a hard calcarenite crust of Pleistocene marine terraces overlying a soft marl core.

[2] In 1989, Joan Breton Connelly from New York University heard about the work and impressed by the range of the material joined the excavations which have continued since then.

The most intense of this activity is the late Hellenistic period at a time when Cleopatra ruled Cyprus.