Lyss

Lyss is a municipality in the Seeland administrative district of the canton of Bern in Switzerland. On 1 January 2011 the former municipality of Busswil bei Buren was merged with it. Lyss is first mentioned in 1009 as Lissa. The oldest traces of human presence include Neolithic, Bronze Age and Hallstatt culture items, among them a well-preserved Etruscan bronze statue of the sixth century BC; Roman bricks have been found in Kirchhubeli, together with early medieval and medieval tombs and the remains of a Carolingian church. A ministerial family of Lyss is recorded in 1185-87 under the Counts of Neuchatel-Aarberg, and in 1866 a dairy and credit society was founded as a bank to help local farmers. The municipality has an area of 14.83 square kilometres, with about thirty percent farmland and a third forest.