The acropolis of ancient Kyrros and the fortified city of the early Byzantine era are located south of Arabyssos, on the site of the village "Paleokastro" which was abandoned in 1927.
Kyrros is mentioned as a city as early as the 5th century BC (Thucydides, 11, 100, 4).
The city flourished particularly during the Hellenistic years and is counted among the great cities of Lower Macedonia, such as Veria, Mieza, Edessa, Skydra, Pella and Europos.
Egnatia Odos passed at a distance of 3 km. roughly south of the ancient city. There was a crossroads and a station for changing horses. The station in the area south and southwest of the city at the location "Kato Voudristes" has been partially recently excavated.
In the acropolis of Ancient Kyrros, a marble inscribed stele was found, which bears a resolution, which related, among other things, to the control of illegal constructions on public plots in the city and to important works and conversions in the Agora. The stele was reused in a parapet wall of the sanctuary of Athena.
A short distance southwest of the acropolis there is an important prehistoric tomb, which was inhabited during the Late Neolithic Period and the Bronze Age (5th-2nd millennium BC). Between the acropolis and the tomb there are ruins of an early Christian bridge, built with ancient building material and khurasani, under which a stream passed. . Golden mouthpieces and other gifts, which are in the Museum of Thessaloniki, come from tombs in the cemetery of the Late Neolithic Period (end of the 4th millennium) of Toumba.
In the southern foothills of Paikos, northwest of Kyrros, in the location "Kaloupia", at 300m altitude, there is an extensive open-air quarry of very good quality gray hard limestone. The stone bricks from there were used in the buildings of ancient Pella (palace, market, sanctuaries, houses). and of ancient Kyrros (e.g. on the wall). On the slope there are the roads that were used for the "lithagogian", the transport of the building blocks. Mining of the material probably began in classical times.
Editor: Fotini Anastasopoulou