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A month from now, CAARI will celebrate its 40th birthday. With our dynamic new director, Dr. Lindy Crewe, our newly inaugurated petrographic laboratory, our new, two-storey library expansion, and our freshly renovated interior spaces, we are meeting our anniversary with élan. This news-flash shows the dynamism of CAARI's intellectual life, introducing each phase of research that is being pursued there. We introduce our newly selected graduate student fellows, our postdoctoral fellows, and the senior scholar in residence, and then show the fruits of research completed-the dissertation research of Craig Harvey, and the book of Professor William Caraher, a well-known archaeologist whose research on Late Antique and Byzantine Cyprus has broadened into contemporary fields far from Cyprus itself. But first of all, here is a welcome from Dr. Crewe.
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Message From the Director
Dear Friends and Supporters of CAARI:
Greetings from a sweltering Nicosia. Spring seems to have turned to full summer very quickly this year and we've already reached temperatures of 34°C (93°F)! Nicosia and CAARI are in full spring session, with a busy program of events and lectures and many of our visiting researchers and fellows on the island, including some of those who are featured in the newsflash. In case you wonder why one of our fellows, Craig Harvey, is holding a puppy in the photograph with his research report, this is the newest addition to the CAARI family,
Darcey. Craig kindly took a break from his research for a little dog-sitting! Here in Cyprus, we've been attending lectures at the Archaeological Research Unit and the Cyprus Institute. And I have carried the CAARI name farther afield, presenting research at the British Association of Near Eastern Archaeology conference in Durham and at the Aegeus Society in Athens.
Since my last message, we've hosted two excellent lectures in our CAARI spring program. On the 15th March we held a special evening to inaugurate the new thin section laboratory equipment that I mentioned in the last news.
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Bichrome Wheelmade ware (photo: courtesy of M. Artzy) |
Professor Michal Artzy, Head of the Hatter Laboratory and Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies at the University of Haifa, came across from Israel to give us a lecture on 'The initiation of provenance studies: an archaeologist's personal odyssey'. Professor Artzy is one of the pioneers of neutron activation analysis (NAA) of archaeological pottery and has worked on Cypriot
material since the 1970s. It was really interesting to hear of her early efforts to
get the technique recognized and the revolutionary results she obtained, challeng
ing assumptions on the location of manufacture of Late Bronze Age pottery, particularly allocating the stunning Bichrome Wheelmade ware (shown here) to its rightful place as a Cypriot product!
Our second lecture on the 19th of April was Professor Maria Iacovou of the Archaeological Research Unit at the University of Cyprus who gave a fascinating talk on her current fieldwork entitled 'Palaepaphos 2006-2017: From a landscape analysis project to urban mega-monuments'. Professor Iacovou and her team have a long-term project excavating, surveying and undertaking geophysical research at the important site of Palaepaphos (modern Kouklia). Her research is illuminating not only the importance of the area from the Bronze Age through to the Classical period but also showing how the people utilised the landscape and its resources, from the copper of the mountains to the trade and connections from the sea. Both lectures drew an excellent audience with guests staying on to enjoy the receptions and opportunities for lively discussion in the CAARI foyer.
The big events organised in celebration of our 40th anniversary are almost upon us. There is still time to join us here for the gala dinner at the Presidential Palace on the 14th June. If you think you can make it please get in touch with Vathoulla before the end of May by email (admin@caari.org.cy) and she will reserve places for you. We of course welcome you all to the annual archaeology workshop on the 16th June and the evening party at CAARI.
Lindy Crewe, PhD
Director, CAARI
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Welcome CAARI's 2018-2019 Fellows
The Three Graduate Student Fellows
The Danielle Parks Memorial Fellowship
Sarah Douglas, University of Manchester
Gender and Status on Prehistoric Cyprus: Rethinking Bronze Age Burial Data (c. 2500-1340 BC)
I aim to identify patterns in grave good distribution, in order to shed light on aspects of identity on Bronze Age Cyprus. Through compiling demographic data from osteological analysis of skeletal remains and analyzing the relationship between bodies and grave goods in burials, patterns related to various facets of human identity, including gender and status are being illuminated. In particular, this research is shedding light on the deposition of weapons, tools and items of adornment, which became staple grave goods from the onset of the Bronze Age. In tandem with the demographic data, use-wear analysis of tools from tombs (knives, spearheads, spindle whorls and whetstones) is offering an insight into grave goods as used personal possessions vs. unused grave gifts.
The Helena Wylde Swiny and Stuart Swiny Fellowship
Ian Randall, Brown University
Dining and Connectivity at times of Crisis on the South Coast of Cyprus
My project examines the ceramic evidence for dining practices and amphorae consumption at two periods of transition for Cyprus, the 4th and the 7th c. C.E. As the ceramicist for the Kourion Urban Space Project I will be comparing the imported amphorae and the concomitant dining wares from 4th c. abandonment, and particularly the rehabitation of the site in the 5th c., with those of my dissertation research which focus on
several 7th c. abandonments on Cyprus. The goal is to build an understanding of how structural collapse, disaster, and recovery affect connectivity and community building as they are manifested through daily practice.
The Anita Cecil O'Donovan Fellowship
Kellie Youngs, University of Melbourne
The Transmission and Innovation of Faience and Glass Technologies of Cyprus in the Late Bronze Age
My project has commenced with an examination of the production and dissemination of glass and faience in Late Bronze Age Cyprus. I have travelled to Cyprus, Sweden, and Britain to compile a catalogue of glass and faience objects from Cyprus, providing a representative, though not exhaustive, dataset. Using a portable scanner/camera with an automated turntable, I am creating a database of 3D images of Late
Cypriot glass and faience to provide a platform for precise, simultaneous comparative 3D morphometric analysis to identify distinguishing manufacturing signatures across the collections. These manufacturing signatures will provide insight into what level of local production existed and how it was influenced by imported products and technological transfer.
The Two 2018-2019 CAARI/CAORC Postdoctoral Fellows
Henry Shapiro, Princeton University
Armenian Pilgrims in Ottoman Cyprus
I am a historian of the early modern Middle East. I expect to complete my PhD in the History Department of Princeton University in 2018, and I have been accepted as a member of the Polonsky Academy for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. My research focuses on the social, cultural, and intellectual history of non-Muslim communities in the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Iran. I am grateful to the CAARI for supporting my research on Armenians in Ottoman Cyprus. For Armenians, as for Christians of many other creeds, Cyprus was a critical way-station, facilitating their movement on pilgrimage between Istanbul and Jerusalem.
Laura Swantek, Arizona State University
Social Complexity on Cyprus before and after Urbanism
My previous research has shown that socio-economic inequality emerges on Cyprus during the Prehistoric Bronze Age as a product of the complex social interactions of individuals. It is apparent, however, that inequality is not pervasive; society is best described as heterarchical and social networks are dynamic. Does inequality become persistent and pervasive after the development of Cypriot cities in the Protohistoric Bronze Age? To answer this question, data will be gathered from resources at the CAARI library and analyzed using small world network modelling, statistical scaling, GIS applications and Gini coefficients, and a publication of this research will be prepared.
Dr. Hanan Charaf-Mullins, CAARI's 2018 Senior Scholar in Residence and Anniversary Fellow
CAARI Senior Scholar in Residence Fellowship, and CAARI 40th Anniversary Fellowship
Hanan Charaf-Mullins, Lebanese University
Bronze Age Cypriot imports to Tell Arqa and Sidon, Lebanon: Final Publication Project
The sites of Tell Arqa and Sidon in Lebanon have yielded hundreds of Cypriot ceramics dated to the Bronze Age. The corpus of pottery found in the excavations include Cypriot styles encompassing the majority of the range of Cypriot imports to the Levant, thus attesting to a robust exchange network between the island and this region of the Levant. The types of Cypriot imports to both sites are similar possibly indicating a standardized "Levantine export" assemblage. The final publication of the Bronze Age levels at Sidon are underway and slated to be completed in the next two years. Concurrently, preparations for the final publication on the Middle and Late Bronze Age levels at Tell Arqa are actively underway. A fellowship at CAARI will contribute substantially to finalizing the chapters on the Cypriot Bronze Age imports to both these sites.
Dr. Charaf-Mullins is also the recipient of a special birthday grant from the U.S. Embassy in Nicosia to oversee and transcribe oral history interviews of people who have played a significant role in CAARI's 40-year evolution. These will constitute an important historical legacy, and we welcome her expertise warmly.
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Reports on Research from the Field
Craig Harvey Reports on 2017/18 Danielle Parks Memorial Fellowship Research
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Craig Harvey with Darcey
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Thanks to the Danielle Parks Memorial Fellowship, I had the opportunity to visit Cyprus for the very first time and carry out necessary research for my dissertation at the University of Michigan. During my residence at CAARI, I had the chance to meet with local scholars, use the center's impressive library, and visit archaeological sites relating to my dissertation, which focuses on Roman-period construction techniques and materials. My research specifically examines the extent to which indigenous building techniques were used in Roman-style baths, and Cyprus serves as an excellent test case for investigating this issue. I am happy to report that my time on Cyprus was extremely beneficial to my dissertation research, and I was able to identify examples of indigenous construction techniques, such as masonry style, that were used in several of the island's Roman-style baths, such as those at Amathus, Paphos, and Kourion. Although I was primarily focused on the archaeology of Roman Cyprus, I also had the chance to experience the culture of modern Cyprus and was incredibly impressed by the beauty of the island and the friendliness of Cypriots. I am incredibly grateful to CAARI, its donors, and the Danielle Parks Memorial Fellowship for enabling me to spend time in Cyprus and study its rich cultural heritage for my dissertation research. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Cyprus and at CAARI, and I look forward to visiting the island again.
Professor William Caraher on the Frontiers of Research
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Bill Caraher at work on Cyprus
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The Bakken: An Archaeology of an
Industrial Landscape: or:
Cyprus is Everywhere
by Prof. William Caraher
My first season excavating on Cyprus was in 2008. At that time, I had completed four seasons of intensive pedestrian survey at the site of Pyla-Koutsopetria, a coastal site located some 10 km east of Larnaka and just inside the British Base at Dhekelia. I was carrying the controller of a differential GPS unit across slopes of loose soil at the coastal height of Vigla while an unlikely colleague, Bret Weber, dutifully held the rover in place and leveled it as I recorded the point. We did this thousands of times on our way to making a high-resolution DEM of our site. It was boring
work but gave us plenty of time for conversation.
Bret Weber was the project's cook and camp manager, and he'd help out in the field almost every day. He also had a PhD in Western History and had almost completed his Masters in Social Work. He was deeply active in issues surrounding housing both in our home town of Grand Forks, North Dakota and in his scholarship in 20th century urbanism and social welfare. As we took point after point, we discussed the Bakken Oil Boom that had just started in western North Dakota and the growing rumors of life in the temporary "man camps" that had popped up across "the patch" to accommodate the influx of workers.
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Bill Caraher (center) and Bret Weber (to his right) at work in North Dakota at The Bakken
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Newcomers to the region who couldn't find room in a hotel or in a man camp ended up squatting in the Williston Walmart parking lot, and in various make-shift camps across the Bakken counties. At the same time, our work at Pyla-Vigla where we clicked off point after point, revealed what we thought was probably a 4th-century mercenary camp, housing soldiers who occupied this prominent fortified height on the Cypriot coast during the tumultuous early Hellenistic era. We wondered about life in an ancient camp and whether the mercenary camp was similar to the encampments and short-term settlements that for millennia served miners in the Troodos mountains. Our field work, the history of settlement and extractive industries on Cyprus, and important work of archaeologists and historians to unpack the relationship between the two, framed our discussion of what was going on with settlement and extractive industries in western North Dakota.
When Bret and I returned home we continued to reflect on our fieldwork conversations, we read extensively on the organization of settlement and extractive industries in a global context, we recruited a range of colleagues to our project, many of whom were Mediterranean archaeologists, and, finally, in 2012, we inaugurated the North Dakota Man Camp Project. The Bakken: An Archaeology of an Industrial Landscape (Fargo, ND: North Dakota State University Press 2017) is the first book-length publication from this project.
This book used the genre of the tourist guide to present the bustling and sometimes ephemeral landscape of the Bakken oil patch. The decision to frame our work as a tourist guide once again drew on my experience as a tourist in Greece in the 1990s and then Cyprus in early 21st century which indelibly shaped my view of the landscape. The language of my trusty Rough and Blue Guide for Greece and Cyprus suffused the language of The Bakken, which, like these handy guides, is divided into routes and sites. Our goal was to evoke the modern experience of tourism created, in part, by such iconic guidebooks as Baedeker's and the Blue Guide which led the informed tourist. More importantly, my summers in Greece and Cyprus as both a tourist and an archaeologist reinforced the parallels between these two deeply modern experiences of landscapes. The spaces and places defined and described by both tourism and archaeology are profoundly modern ways of managing the past into neatly organized and ordered categories, typologies, and spaces. In short, my time on Cyprus made me more aware of my modern way of seeing the world.
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Bill Caraher in his study
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The Latest on CAARI's Birthday Celebration
Send CAARI a Birthday Gift!
You can do that very simply by clicking here, which takes you to our Web site:
But there are many ways in which you can make a more personally tailored gift, reflecting the things that are most important to you about CAARI. We offer three ideas here.
Gifts of Books:
Our last news-flash brought out the importance of maintaining CAARI's great library. Digital publication is expanding, but books on paper remain the critical resource in all fields of the cultural, social, and natural sciences. Give CAARI a book! Look for CAARI's Wishlist on
www.Amazon.com
. CAARI's librarian, Katerina Mavromichalou, has listed many books our library needs, like these:
To use the Wishlist
, log onto Amazon as above, use "Find a List or Registry", search for CAARI, click on the CAARI bird, choose your book, and send it to CAARI, 11 Andreas Demetriou Street, Nicosia 1505, Cyprus.
A Gift of Technology:
CAARI's workshops are a staple part of its intellectual life;
its off-site lectures are enjoyed all over the island. Having a small, port
able PowerPoint projector
for these occasions would be a great help
, making it
unnecessary to dismantle the big, fixed projector in the library.
It would be wonderful if one of our readers would like to send $100.00 for such a projector as a birthday gift
to the Institute.
A Gift of Leafy Shade:
We need to grow more potted plants along the glass walls of the garden façade, both to brighten the garden, and to shade the stairs to the new underground storeys of the library. A plant in its pot, ready to cultivate, costs about $150.
The Latest on the Birthday Events
The week of 10 - 17 June 2018 will see a glittering constellation of birthday festivities in Nicosia:
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Chris Christodoulou with the CAARI bird presented to him
at the inauguration of the library
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A gala dinner on June 14 at the Presidential Palace in which CAARI will honour Trustee Chris Christodoulou (€ 50 each). Chris, who is pictured at the left, is a prominent business man and contractor in Cyprus who has been absolutely invaluable to us in building the library extension.
A
party at CAARI
for everyone on June 16, following the
Summer Archaeological Workshop.
A
reception at the U.S. Embassy (by invitation).
And our forthcoming birthday book, CAARI and the Archaeology of Cyprus: The First 40 Years.
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Help Make 2018 a Wonderful CAARI Year
Over the past 40 years, CAARI has been blessed by the generosity of so many supportive friends
. CAARI's flourishing condition is the testimony to this loyalty. It is thanks to you-every one of you-that these decades have been so fruitful. We owe you such deep thanks. Know that your gifts are being used fully and thoughtfully to sustain ever deeper understanding of the immensely rich cultural nexus that is Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean. We are committed to continuing this work! Thank you for being committed, too.
Annemarie Carr
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