Just outside the walls of the city, to the north and east, are the cemeteries of Paphos. The northernmost part of this incredibly large necropolis constitutes what is known as the “Tombs of the Kings”.

The impressive appearance of the tombs and the heavy Doric style of their pediment contributed to the nick-naming of the site. The cemetery was continuously used as a burial ground during the Hellenistic and Roman periods (3rd century B.C. — 3rd century A.D.) and as a place of refuge by the early Christians during persecution. In medieval times they were used by squatters who established themselves in some of the large tombs making alterations to the original architecture.

The site became the object of severe looting by Cesnola and his successors in the last quarter of the XIX century. It was visited by the German scholars Ross and Dörpfeld and the British architect Jeffery who gave their descriptions of some of the accessible tombs. The late curator of the Cyprus Museum, Markides, excavated some shaft tombs, in 1915 — 1916. In 1937 the late honorary curator of Paphos Museum, Loizos Philippou, started clearance work in the large known tombs with the peristyle court. The work continued with some interruption up to 1951. Although this work resulted in the clearance of some tomb complexes, it was of no significance for the history of Paphos, as it lacked scholarly supervision. Evidence derived from the unsystematic excavation was lost for ever.

Forty years later, in 1977 the Cyprus Department of Antiquities, seeing the importance of these tombs as the only standing architectural monuments of the period, undertook the systematic excavation of the site. Ten excavation campaigns have been completed so far and have resulted in the excavation of three large tomb complexes and the investigation of many small tombs.