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It's winter in Nicosia, and CAARI's researchers are more often in the book-lined warmth of the library, pictured above, than in the field. But they "dig" extensively in the new, underground stories of stacks, and appreciate the amplitude and order of the expanded space.
We have much to report: recent and forthcoming activities of the Institute; a new Administrator in the Boston office; a pioneering book edited by CAARI scholars; and the exceptional gift of a rare journal to the CAARI library. And we urge you to look at our new Web site, www.caari.org.
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CAARI's New Petrographic Thin-Section Laboratory
CAARI is eagerly anticipating the arrival of our top of the line Buehler thin section equipment that will be part of our new Petrographic Thin Section Laboratory, the only one in Cyprus. Through generous funding from the United States Department of Education, CAARI has been able to purchase this specialized equipment that will allow researchers to prepare and analyze thin sections for use in geology, ceramic studies, osteology or any other discipline that uses this technique.
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Buehler IsoMet High Speed Pro
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CAARI will house our equipment at the University of Cyprus laboratories, and university staff and students will make use of and maintain the equipment. This arrangement is an excellent way for CAARI to join forces with the superb facilities at the University of Cyprus, and allows CAARI affiliates to make the most of collaborative scientific studies. We are very proud to be able to bring this equipment to Cyprus. The equipment is expected to arrive early in 2017. It will open a new realm of scientific possibilities to researchers in the Mediterranean.
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CAARI's October Reception at the Embassy of Cyprus
During the October hearings on the renewal of Cyprus' Memorandum of Understanding, CAARI co-hosted a program and reception at the Embassy of Cyprus. Attendees learned about the wide range of diplomatic, legal, regulatory, and policing initiatives being implemented by the Republic of Cyprus to halt illegal trafficking of cultural heritage. They also gained a vivid glimpse of the way individual archaeologists - if they have the imagination that CAARI's Director, Andrew McCarthy has - can use their digs to protect them. Dr. McCarthy showed how he initiated a festive annual cook-off in a village near his site by replicating the extraordinary prehistoric roasting pit found there, and putting it to use. Villagers and visitors alike gained a new appreciation for the site, and for the way it could bring value to the surrounding community.
The program's distinguished participants were: Dr. Leonidas Pantelides, Ambassador of the Republic of Cyprus; Dr. Marina Solomidou-Ieronymidou, Director of the Department of Antiquities, Republic of Cyprus; Dr. Andrew McCarthy, CAARI Director; Mr. Michalis Gavrielides, Police Inspector, Cultural Heritage Office, Cyprus Police; Dr. Evangelini Markou, Numismatist-Researcher, National Research Institute-Athens.
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Forthcoming International Conference at CAARI
On 17-19 February 2017, CAARI will hold an important conference entitled 'Environment, landscape and society: diachronic perspectives on settlement patterns in Cyprus.'
The conference will investigate the complex factors that went into the choices people in the past made when determining where they would live and work. Changing relationships with the landscape and the environment can tell us important things about the priorities human groups placed on things like natural resources, interconnectivity and central places. A diachronic perspective can show how these factors changed along with society. Importantly, conference participants will look at the very long chronological view, and we are pleased that papers from nearly every time period in Cypriot history and prehistory will be represented, from Pre-pottery Neolithic down to the British Colonial Period.
Our keynote lecturer will be by Prof. James C. Wright, (Bryn Mawr College and Director of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens), who will provide an off-Cyprus view of these subjects in his paper, 'The longue durée: The piedmont of the Corinthia and cycles of regional occupation.'
Please join us at CAARI at 7pm on Friday the 17th of February for this lecture and a reception to follow. The rest of the conference will take place from 8.15am to 5pm on Saturday the 18th and from 9am to 5pm on Sunday the 18th.
This conference is being co-organized with the Cyprus Institute and is receiving generous funding from the US Embassy in Cyprus, who are also providing financial assistance to publish the proceedings. The proceedings are planned to appear as the next installment in the CAARI Monograph Series.
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Troodos Landscape in winter
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Meet Dr. China Shelton, CAARI's Boston Administrator
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Dr. Shelton's is the friendly face behind the letters and phone calls you might exchange with our Stateside office at Boston University. A native of California, Dr. Shelton received her B.A. in Anthropology and Art History from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her Ph.D. in Archaeology from Boston University. Her doctoral dissertation, "Food, Economy, and Identity in the Sangro River Valley, Abruzzo, Italy, 650 BC - AD 150," was completed in 2009 under Professor James R. Wiseman. Her present research focuses on integrative environmental archaeology at Iklania in Messenia, Greece and Morgantina in Sicily, Italy. She joined CAARI in September after teaching for five years at Framingham State University in Massachusetts. In addition to her work for CAARI, she also holds the position of the Assistant Director in the Boston Office for the American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR) in Amman, Jordan, CAARI's sister institution within ASOR. She succeeds
Dr. Donald R. Keller, who had held the same two positions splendidly since 1996. We welcome Dr. Shelton warmly after Dr. Keller's acutely felt departure.
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CAARI Scholars in a Pioneering Publication
Mobilizing the Past for a Digital Future: The Potential of Digital Archaeology (co-edited by Erin W. Averett, Jody M. Gordon, and Derek B. Counts) was published in October 2016 by The Digital Press of the University of North Dakota.
The volume emerged from a dynamic two-day workshop supported by a Digital Humanities Start-Up grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that took place in Boston, 27-28 February 2016. The papers and conversations from this workshop form the basis for the case studies presented in the volume and demonstrate the tremendous diversity in the digital tools used in archaeological field practice. From drones in the Andes to iPads at Pompeii, digital workflows in the American Southwest, and examples of bespoke, DIY, and commercial software, technology now provides solutions and crafts novel challenges for field archaeologists. The aim of the workshop and publication was to capture a critical moment in the rapidly changing world of digital archaeology, with a focus on mobile computing in the field.
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Digital archaeology in action
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In the 21st century, archaeology is no longer the domain of excavators with picks and pith helmets armed with notebooks and pencils, but a high-tech enterprise. Archaeologists now take high-powered laptop computers, tablets, drones, and sophisticated software and workflows into the field with them. Introduced by a sweeping survey of the intellectual and practical issues surrounding digital practices in archaeology and anchored by two critical reflections, the volume is more than merely a survey of new technology, but stands as an enduring monument for a discipline undergoing rapid and dramatic changes.
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| Averett and Gordon at work |
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Notably, Mobilizing the Past features several archaeological projects in Cyprus, with contributions from several current and former members of the CAARI Board of Trustees
and community. This highlights the key role of Cypriot archaeology in the ongoing discussion of the future of digital archaeology. The workshop was organized by several members of the Athienou Archaeological Project (including two current CAARI Trustees Erin Walcek Averett and Michael K. Toumazou, former Trustee Derek Counts, and Jody Gordon) as part of our efforts to understand the potential of digital tools that were available for their work in central Cyprus. With funding from the NEH, we were able to get a sweeping sense for what projects around the world were doing with mobile technology. This was useful in helping us bring new tools to bear on our own excavations as well as introduce students to the cutting edge of technology in our pursuit of more efficient, sophisticated, and dynamic readings of the past. The volume additionally features work done by the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeology Project (co-directed by CAARI Trustee William Caraher together with David Pettegrew and former CAARI Trustee, R. Scott Moore), and Brandon Olson's work with Caraher, Moore, and Amy Papalexandrou at Polis-Chrysochous.
We are especially proud of our innovative and collaborative publication strategy working with CAARI Trustee William Caraher, Director and Publisher of The Digital Press at University of North Dakota. Mobilizing the Past is available as a free, open-access download with online supplemental material from the Digital Press (mobilizing-the-past-for-a-digital-future) or can be purchased in paper form from Amazon.com.
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Scarce Periodical Added to the CAARI Library
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Title Page of Al HaSaf, Number 1
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CAARI's expanded library is now fully operational, giving us much more secure climate controlled space to house scarce works related to the history and archaeology of Cyprus. We are particularly interested in expanding our holdings of works published in the 20th century that are under copyright (and as a consequence not available as free digital copies) that are not held by institutions in Cyprus.
We are pleased to announce that CAARI recently acquired a complete run of a scarce periodical published in the Cyprus internment camps run by the British government to hold Jews who had immigrated or attempted to immigrate to Palestine after World War II. The camps operated between August 1946 and February 1949 and held nearly 55,000 people.
Several newspapers and periodicals were published in the camps. CAARI has acquired a complete run of "Al HaSaf" (On the Verge) a weekly magazine published by students and graduates of the Pinhas Rutenberg JDC Seminary for Guides in Cyprus. 25 issues (some double issues) were published between 1948 and 1949. The issues contain much information on life in the camps, articles on current events, reports on the events in Palestine, and literary and cultural items reflecting the spiritual life in the camps. The publications are illustrated with hand-drawn art work.
The logo of the magazine, a pair of hands extended in greeting from the shore of Cyprus to the shore of Palestine with a ship sailing between, is evocative of the words found in Issue 21 "As the Nazis were there - in the extermination camps in Transnistria, so the British are here - in the detention camps, where they wish to push us to despair. But they cannot, the air of Palestine is too close here, and it won't allow it."
Publications (particularly complete runs of the newspapers and magazines) published in the camps are scarce due to their ephemeral nature. There seem to be few if any copies in Cyprus institutions. This periodical was donated to CAARI by a friend who acquired it in Jerusalem. CAARI welcomes donations of material to its library as well as funds that can be used to keep it operating to its fullest extent.
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The publications, programs, and events reviewed here give a sense of CAARI's vitality as a hub of research on Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean. All of this is happening thanks to you. Your generous support has enabled our expanded library, made possible our fellowships, funded our public programs, and-through gifts like Al HaSaf-made our library ever finer.
As so often, we send our sincere and dedicated thanks. Through CAARI, you are building a legacy in a land of immense historic depth. Stay with us as we move ahead. Help us keep this momentum growing.
If you haven't already responded to our annual appeal, do so right now, and take a look at our newly designed Web site:
With warm thanks for your generosity from all of us at CAARI,
Annemarie Carr
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