Dear friends,

I'm delighted to see the response to our petition grow even more day by day! I wanted to take this opportunity to expand more on the significance of this amazing archaeological finding. Obviously for reasons of brevity and for focusing on the political aspect of things I omitted much about the fractionating knowledge we gained from the Cypriot terracotta army. So I shall dedicate this update to expand a bit more on it.

The Cypriot terracotta army seems to bear religious significance: the site in Agia Eirini was an ancient sanctuary with adjacent building complexes such as the living quarters of ancient priests. Other samples from the site seem to confirm elements of habitation in that region.

The sanctuary itself has a multilayered history. Literally. There have been at least 3 different sites on that same spot which were successively built on top of each other after being covered in dirt. The earliest sanctuary dates back to the Bronze Age somewhere around the 13th century BC. The site then was successively damaged, flooded, destroyed, and rebuilt over the course of several centuries, lasting up until roughly the 6th century BC.

The statues and figures found in the site are also a reflection of this layered history. A few of the smaller, simpler animal figures do indeed date back centuries before the Archaic period, while some of the more elaborate large human figures were later additions. The main bulk of the army is the work from 650-500 BC. This further speaks to the egregiousness of the splitting of the army: not only was the religiously significant setup disrupted, but the layers of the sanctuary's 700-year old history were also affected.

This army - while impressive in size - is less of an army in the military sense and more of a crowd. There are several humanoid figures with weapons such as spears as well as chariots which hark back to a military element for the site, but the majority of figures are neutral humanoid types, mythical creatures, and animals (mainly bulls and horses). These include figures depicting musicians, merchants or perhaps devotees making offerings, agricultural imagery etc. The musician statues indicate music being a central aspect of the religious practices on the site. Some of the larger statues seem to depict the priests of the sanctuary, with the largest one wearing a turban (speculated to have been wielding a knife originally), probably depicting some sacrificial ritual.

So what or who was the sanctuary for? This too is the subject of continuous evolution. The earliest finds suggest a sanctuary that was interconnected with the civilian settlements around, as well as possessing a special sanctuary building in which rituals were performed and offerings were made. Jars and vases found in store rooms elsewhere at the site mean that the offerings were probably crops. All these show that the deity or deities worshipped were most likely connected to agriculture and animal husbandry. It's unclear what they might have looked like, but bull imagery seems to imply either a god in that form or a god whose symbol was the bull and through which the veneration was carried out.

The immediate next layer of the site has a more elaborate architectural design that went hand in hand in the increased elaborateness of the rituals involved. Due to the presence of ash marks on the site, it is speculated that animal blood sacrifices were part of worship (with ceremonial burning of animal offerings), similar to blood sacrifices found in other contemporary sites in places such as Greece. 

Next comes the addition of the warrior figures as well as evidence of a raised enclosure around the site. These suggest that the cult or religion venerated in the sanctuary became increasingly associated with war, and the deity or deities involved were likely anthropomorphic. Bulls remain a constant theme through this period and the next. Further additions of bull-themed items such as ritual masks and minotaur figures in addition to what seem to have been sacred tree enclosures create a clear cultural connection to religious practices such as those encountered in Crete during the Minoan period.

Lastly, we should mention one of the most fascinating objects which is the ceremonial stone found in the middle of the arrangement, with the terracotta army forming a semicircle around it. It's not certain whether something else was initially at its place, and some suggest that the stone itself is an addition from somewhere in the middle of the sanctuary's history replacing an older stone. The practice of such ceremonial stones (or betyls) was not uncommon in the ancient world, but it's not entirely understood what the significance of this stone was.

The Cypriot terracotta army is unfortunately criminally understudied. There have been efforts to intensify the study of the objects and their significance, but both the obscurity of this aspect of ancient Cypriot history seem to leave us with great gaps of knowledge. The fact the original site in Agia Eirini remains in the northern portion of the island that is militarily occupied surely doesn't help either.

The repatriation of this priceless treasure shall also mark a new beginning of studies and cultivating fascination for this riveting aspect of our past and heritage. The reunification of the Cypriot terracotta army also means that new generations of academic researchers will visit the island and carry out further research to uncover even more of our island's history!