Reconstructing Community from Broken Pots and Ruined Churches on Cyprus

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Do not cite without author’s permission. © 2013

Reconstructing Community from Broken Pots and Ruined Churches on Cyprus

William Caraher, University of North Dakota

Delivered at the University of Texas, Austin

Workshop on Late Antiquity

September 27, 2013

Introduction

About a year ago, a friend and Texas Alumnus Dimitri Nakassis, asked me an informal,

but not uninformed question: why does no one pay attention to archaeology on Cyprus?

After telling him that strictly speaking this was not true, it got me thinking about the

archaeology of Cyprus more broadly and what we need to do to draw Cyprus more fully into

ongoing conversations in Mediterranean archaeology. As this talk is being presented as part of

series on Late Antiquity, I’ll largely limit my remarks to the Late Antique period on thisisland, but the Roman and Late Roman periods work well for a consideration of archaeology

on the island in a larger Mediterranean context. More specifically, I’ll bracket the paper with

two sites on the island of Late Roman date where I have done field work over the last decade:

Polis-Chrysochous and Pyla-Koutsopetria. [SLIDE]

Part of my goal of working at these sites (and I can’t speak necessarily for my collaborators) is to use Late Antique Cyprus as a way to think regionally both on Cyprus and

in the Eastern Mediterranean [SLIDE] When I say that I want to use Cyprus to think in a



in the Eastern Mediterranean [SLIDE] When I say that I want to use Cyprus to think in a


Polis

Since 2010, I’ve been working with an amazing team of scholars at the site of Polis-

Chrysochous, ancient Arsinoe, in the northwestern corner of the island. Settled during the

Neolithic and called Marion during the Iron Age, Ptolemy Philadelphus refounded the city as

Arisnoe during the chaotic Hellenistic period on the island. During the Late Roman period

the city was the seat of a bishop and had at least three basilica style churches, two of which

were excavated by the Princeton Polis Expedition in the 1980s and 1990s. Amy

Papalexandrou, Scott Moore, Brandon Olson and I are working to publish the churches from

the site. [SLIDE] We have so far focused on the church that we’ve designated the South

Basilica. The remains of this church stands in a built up zone of the Late Antique city called

by the excavators E.F2. It included several phases of architecture, numerous burials, elaborate

water works, and city streets.

Methodological Interlude

[SLIDE] Before we proceed with my analysis, I feel like I should include a brief word on

method. Amy Papalexandrou and I with the support of long time project director Willie

Childs and Joanna Smith have re-studied the architecture of the South Basilica which was

originally studied by Danny Curcic in a series of papers in the mid-1980s. We planned to

bring greater attention to the stratigraphic record to bear on Curcic’s largely typological,architectural analysis with a particular interest in producing archaeological dates for the

various modifications to the church’s plan and structure Over the past three years a team of




trenches in immediate vicinity of the South Basilica. This allowed us to reorganize the data

according to stratigraphic relationship and to produce Harris Matrixes for each trench.

[SLIDE] We also prepared a digital site plan for the area of the South Basilica based on the

state plans produced by the project’s architects and the regular trench plans produced over the

course of excavation. This allowed us to relate walls removed over the course of excavation or

across several trenches (or even years) and begin to correlate certain stratigraphic units across

the entire site. All this was done in ArcGIS which provided us with a flexible workspace for

the analysis of horizontal relationships. The digitized notebooks and GIS have allowed us to

produce georeferenced descriptions of the excavation process. Our work is not quite done,

but we hope that this opens the doors to unique opportunities for publishing both the

excavation data and our analysis. We are particularly sanguine about the prospects of

integrating 3D photogrammetry with our digitized notebook data, but our work along these

lines remains in its early stages.

[SLIDE] At the same time that we worked to organize the excavation notebooks and

plans, we set about studying the context pottery from the excavations. During the

excavations, trench supervisors and specialists identified and recorded separately highly

diagnostic pottery and other individually significant artifacts (coins, lamps, architectural

fragments, et c.). The remaining pottery was quickly documented, undiagnostic sherds

discarded, and a representative sample kept for future study. This sample included mostfeature sherds, rims, handles, bases, and some examples of distinct fabrics. These artifacts had

not been studied systematically for the area around the South Basilica and in 2010 R Scott




basilicas. What is somewhat more remarkable, however, is that two of these churches, the

South Basilica and the yet unnamed basilica in the area named E.G0, were excavated

stratigaphically. These join a disappointingly small group of churches that enjoyed careful

stratigraphic excavation and study on Cyprus. More interestingly, both of these buildings

appear to have enjoyed a rather long-life span. The South Basilica, which we have studied

most extensively, appears to have stood at least as late as the 10th or 11th century with

significant modifications throughout its history. My paper today will look at some of the

byproducts of these modification as a way to understand the decisions made by individual

communities on the island.

I’m going to focus my discussion the first two major phases of the church. The first phases

consisted of only the central nave and two flanking aisle terminating in apses [SLIDE]. Such

simple churches were common on Cyprus and across the Eastern Mediterranean. Our efforts

we have not yet been able to date the first phase as the foundation cuts for the main apse did

not produce any diagnostic pottery. We were, however, able to date levels below the church.It appears that the entire area around the South Basilica was leveled prior to the construction

of the church and the ceramics in this leveling course, which were produced by deep

soundings below the south nave and south aisle wall. [SLIDE] The latest ceramics in the fills

below the foundations of the nave and aisle walls are the inelegantly-named Cypriot Red Slip

forms 9B, 11, and 2 tend to date to the second half of the 6th century. This ceramic material

dates to about a century later than 4th

and 5th

century coins found in levels associated with thefirst phase of the church. The appearance of later 6th century material in lower fills around the

south nave and aisle walls provides a terminus post quem In other words we can probably date




that they probably supported a wood roof, and we can expect that the aisles, which would

have been lower and than the main nave, probably kept their wooded, shed roofs even in the

second phase.

The way we dated this phase was pretty exciting (from an archaeological perspective). It

involved a careful study of both the architecture and the ceramics found in trenches

associated with the modifications to the building. [SLIDE] The most dramatic feature that we

have associated with the second phase of the South Basilica is a vast leveling course of cobble

sized stones and rubble along the south wall of the church. While I’ll return to discussing this

feature later in my paper today, it is important to understand that there was no foundation cut

visible in this level for the south aisle wall. In other words, the south aisle wall predated this

rubble fill which because the foundation for the south portico. [SLIDE] The south portico, in

turn, is contemporary with the narthex, and these two features are structurally and

architecturally dependent upon one another. Moreover, excavation along the west wall of the

narthex and in the large cobble and rubble fill near the south aisle and under the southportico produced a very similar assemblage of pottery. [SLIDE] Both trenches produced

Cypriot Red Slip shapes called “well forms” after their discovery in a sealed well deposit at

Anemurium in Cilicia dating to around 630. Moreover the trenches included the usual array

of other contemporary and earlier Cypriot Red Slip forms including 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11.

Coins in the cobble and rubble fill include a coin of Maurice (582-602) reinforce the 7th

century date for the south portico and narthex.

This is where things get really cool [SLIDE] Nassos Papalexandrou excavated the




Peninsula studied in the mid-20th century by Megaw and, most recently, by Charles Stewart.

Unfortunately, the walls are not preserved above the level of the foundation making it

difficult to understand the exact modifications that the church endured. For example, it

would be useful to know whether the nave walls received arches or solid walls between the

buttresses. Despite these limitations, it seems fair to assume that the builders at Polis had

some familiarity with the kind of modifications of churches taking place at around the same

time on the Karpas Peninsula on the opposite corner of the island.

[SLIDE] More striking, however, is the similarities of the church at Polis with theelaborate basilica set atop the acropolis of the Amathus some xxx km to the east. Both

churches had arched southern porticos. At Amathus this southern portico joined with a

arched exonarthex; [SLIDE] at the South Basilica at Polis, the portico joined with the narthex

itself. The nave and aisles of the acropolis basilica form a rough square measuring 13 x 13

meters. The nave and aisles of the South Basilica at Polis are remarkably close to these

dimensions. Both churches share a five-sided exterior to the main apse. Finally, the church atAmathus was either contemporary or slightly earlier than the second phase of the South

Basilica. While the acropolis basilica awaits final publication, numismatic evidence dates this

church to the end of the 6th century or the beginning of the 7 th century placing it among the

last large-scale wood-roofed basilicas constructed on the island.

[SLIDE] The decision of the community (or some part of it) to construct a church similar to the acropolis church at Amathus with modifications evoking a group of churches in the

distant Karpas peninsula appears odd The parallels between the Amathus acropolis church




[SLIDE] If architecture hints at ties ties between Polis and the neighboring city of Soloi to

the north, the far northeastern corners of Cyprus, and the central coast, the ceramic evidence

from Polis tells a slightly broader story. The substantial rubble and cobble level associated

with the second phase of the basilica produced a massive assemblage of Roman and Late

Roman period pottery. Archaeologists refer to assemblages found in fills as residual or in

secondary context. This group of pottery, then, does not reflect activities associated with the

intended use of the pottery, but rather discard practices that collected pottery from a wide

range of areas across the site and dumped indiscriminately into a rubble fill. This residual

assemblage, then, represents a wide range of activities up until the point when it dumped intothe leveling fill of the south portico and atrium.

Residual Pottery at Polis

[SLIDE] This residual assemblage produced over 3000 sherds of pottery and a substantial

amount of diagnostic material. Historical periods from the Iron Age to the Late Roman arerepresented in this residual assemblage, but nearly 80% (or 2000 sherds) of the diagnostic

material dates to the Roman or Late Roman period. Sherds dating to the Late Roman period

(4th-7th century AD) make up nearly half the Roman assemblage and provides us with a

substantial cross-section of functions ranging from trade to domestic life at Polis.

[SLIDE] The most substantial (and perhaps most interesting) group of material in the fill were fine wares, which accounted for close to 40% of the total assemblage of Late Roman

material We encountered an overwhelming quantity of Cypriot Red Slip This is a tableware




present in our assemblage tend to feature large folded rims with a distinct groove on the

outside of the vessel where the rim folds over the body. This is similar to number 206 from

Anemurium but less square, and there are few examples of this form from elsewhere on

Cyprus (Williams 1992). Form 7 and 8 tend to feature flat rims with multiple grooves and do

not show the range of related shapes present elsewhere on the island. The substantial presence

of these larger forms of Cypriot Red Slip may hint at the presence of a production site in the

far west of the island. Some scholars have suggested that large vessels tend to travel less

distance from their production sites, and the relatively utilitarian character of these larger

basins might make this even more the case.

[SLIDE] We can add a little more to this argument: The form does not appear among the

types associated with the kilns recently published in Pamphylia in Asia Minor. It may also

speak to the rather late date of activity at our site, as CRS11 and CRS8 represent two of the

latest forms of this ware. The fill from the rooms southeast of the basilica also produced

several shards of "well form" CRS which were produced as late as the first half of the 7thcentury, confirming the rather late date of the fill and the activities that its residual pottery

represented.

[SLIDE] It is notable, however, that in the nearby Canadian-Paliopaphos Survey Project

(CPSP), these three shapes (7, 8, and 11) make up less than 3% of the total assemblage of

CRS. At Polis, these three forms account for almost half of our assemblage of CRS. Whilethis might be explained, partially, by the slightly later character of our residual assemblage

(making some of the earlier material in tertiary context rather than simply secondary) this




from the coast to the copper mining regions in the Troodos Mountain foothills. [SLIDE]

The nearly contemporary coastal site of Maroni-Petrera which stood near the mouth of the

Kalavassos valley produced significantly lower percentage of imported ceramics with over

80% of the assemblage being CRS. Unfortunately they do not reveal the percentages of the

various forms of CRS.

Moving further west on the island and remaining inland, the proportion of CRS to other

finewares appears to declines. At the inland site of Panayia-Ematousa west of modern

Larnaka, Phocaean Ware accounts for close to 60% of the total assemblage of Late Romanfine ware, and Cypriot Red Slip in contrast amounted to just a little over 20% and African

Red Slip at around 15%. The massive supply of Phocaean ware in the eastern half of the

Mediterranean (particular such long lived forms at the Form 3 plate) may account for the

significant presence of PHW at Panayia-Ematousa, but does not necessarily explain why

quantities of CRS, which was also well-supplied to the island, are so proportionately low.

Pyla-Koutsopetria

[SLIDEx5] Moving back to the coast, the site of Pyla-Koutsopetria on Larnaka Bay

provides the final case study for consideration of the distribution of ceramics on the island of

Cyprus. Since 2003, I conducted a survey and excavation at the site of Pyla-Koutsopetria on

the east side of Larnaka bay about 10 km east of the ancient city of Kition (now Larnaka).Our work documented a thriving coastal community of Late Roman date stretching along a

kilometer of the south Cyprus coastline The site benefited from a now infilled embayment




This presence of fine ware provides a more useful source for understanding the site’s

broader engagement with the broader Mediterranean world. Of the three most common

wares, CRS constitutes 70%, PHW 19%, and ARS 11%. The majority of this material is

contemporary with the types present in the Polis assemblage with a slightly larger quantity of

earlier sherds (particularly CRS 1 and 2). [SLIDE] Like at Polis, the most common form of

CRS is the long-lived Form 9. There is very little CRS 7 and 8 and CRS 11 accounts for

only 14% of the assemblage at PKAP rather than 35% at Polis. In other words, the

assemblage at the coastal site of Pyla-Koutsopetria is very different from the assemblage atPolis.

Conclusions

To return to my conversation with Prof. Nakassis, I’d like to show how these rather

preliminary comparisons of Late Roman sites across island of Cyprus can contribute to larger issues in the archaeology of the Late Roman world.

This differences between the contemporary assemblages at Pyla-Koutsopetria and Polis

reflect the complexity of local economic realities and taste. Separated by less 100 miles as the

crow flies and 150 miles by sea, the sites are basically similar. Both have basilica style

churches, robust assemblages of fine table wares and transport vessels, and developed “urban”infrastructures. The artifact assemblages, as we have seen, differ significantly.




In 2000, Horden and Purcell published a book called The Corrupting Sea that argued that

the ancient Mediterranean sea consisted of a series of semi-autonomous microregions. These

microregions engaged their neighbors in trade, adapted to their local environmental

conditions, and cultivated social and political networks designed to allow these communities

to thrive. The fineware assemblages across Cyprus demonstrate variable access to the web of

economic relationships that crisscross the Mediterranean sea.

Similar networks of local preferences may provide a context for the design and

construction techniques manifest in the basilica at Polis. Drawing at least some inspirationfrom elaborate acropolis basilica at Amathus and the vaulted basilicas on the Karpas peninsula,

the church at Polis appears to draw on a different network of relationships.

The value of observing these connections across the island of Cyprus is not so much to

argue that ceramics or church architecture hold any distinct significance, but to set the stage

for a larger consideration of how the relationships between these microregions reflect practiceat the level of individual communities. If we accept that microregions form the basic unit for

social practices in the ancient Mediterranean (and the jury is still out on this, but the evidence

from Cyprus does show remarkable variation), then the decision making present at these

relatively small, local communities is the activity that produces what archaeologists

understand as culture in the ancient world.



Reconstruc*ngCommunityfrom

BrokenPotsandRuinedChurcheson

Cyprus



















R.Maguire,LateAn(queBasilicasonCyprus:sources,contexts,history .

(Unpub.Ph.d.Diss.EastAnglia2012)

Fig.1.1



C.A.Stewart,“TheFirstVaultedChurchesinCyprus”

JournaloftheSocietyofArchitecturalHistorians69(2010)

Fig.1



















C.A.Stewart,“TheFirst

VaultedChurchesinCyprus”

JournaloftheSocietyof

ArchitecturalHistorians69

(2010)Fig.1



R.Maguire,LateAn(que

BasilicasonCyprus:

sources,contexts,history .

(Unpub.Ph.d.Diss.EastAnglia2012)

Fig.6.1,6.2





C.A.Stewart,“TheFirst

VaultedChurchesinCyprus”

JournaloftheSocietyof

ArchitecturalHistorians69

(2010)

Fig.6and7















FromAnemurium



Anemurium

CRSKilns(Gebiz)

Polis

PKAPCPSPKalavasos-Kopetra

Maroni-Petrera



CypriotRedSlipfromPolis





















CypriotRedSlipfromPolis



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Reconstructing Community from Broken Pots and Ruined Churches on Cyprus