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CAARI's foyer is the heart of the Institute, a crossroads of ideas and nationalities, and a cocoon of welcome and communality. When were you last there? This news-flash summons you to come back! Now is the time for all our academic readers to check out the fellowships page on the CAARI Web site, and think about coming back.
It's Time to Apply for CAARI Fellowships!
Encourage your colleagues, students, and friends to apply for CAARI's fellowships. Information about each grant, including application forms, stipends, and expectations, is available at:
www.caari.org/fellowships
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The grants include:
- Three graduate student stipends offering support for travel to Cyprus and lodging at CAARI. Application deadline: December 9, 2019.
- Two CAARI/CAORC postdoctoral fellowships that fund a month's summer research in Cyprus: Application deadline: January 23, 2020.
- The brand new postdoctoral fellowship in honour of Professor Eddie Peltenburg, that can support a full academic year's research time on Cyprus. Application deadline: January 23, 2020.
- Senior Scholar in Residence: Application deadline: December 9, 2019.
- Other relevant fellowship opportunities are listed on the Fellowships page, too.
Browse the possibilities, and apply!
Following the Message from the Director, you can read a report from one of this past summer's CAARI/CAORC fellows. He will give you a vivid picture of what such fellowships can yield. CAARI's library is always growing - read about some new additions to our holdings of material from the Jewish Detention Camps in Cyprus after WWII. We close with a reflection on the importance of CAARI's work in the face of recent events.
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Message from CAARI's Director
Dear friends and supporters of CAARI,
Here in Nicosia, we're well into our post-summer schedule, and September kicked off with lectures and events galore! I've attended the welcome for the new staff at the US Embassy, a celebration for the fifth birthday of the Centre of Visual Arts and Research, as well as catching up after the summer with friends and colleagues. CAARI has contributed to the vibrant Cypriot research environment and we've already held two lectures in the library.
Our first, on September 12th, was a joint lecture from Professor Simon James and Dr Lucy Blue about their work at Dreamer's Bay in the Akrotiri Peninsula. Because they were in the field, their team also joined us and we had a full house, with an audience of around 80 people. It was a fascinating lecture on Roman/Byzantine occupation on the peninsula. They've explored a series of Roman warehouses, a hilltop building that may have been a watch tower, a submerged breakwater and a Roman quarry. Hearing about all these archaeological elements from the perspective of both land and sea was really illuminating. Particularly interesting is how the area may have related to the site of Kourion and wider Mediterranean trade.
Our second lecture, on the 26th September, was from our CAARI Senior Scholar in Residence, Professor Elzbieta Jastrzebowska. Professor Jastrzebowska spoke on her research into the fragments of wall paintings found in the House of Aion by the Polish Team at Neapaphos. Using parallels from around the Roman Empire, she argues convincingly for an interpretation of the fragments as a known type of household decoration, depicting muses and Apollo in panels painted around the walls of the room. The Senior Scholar in Residence is an important aspect of CAARI's research life and we are grateful to these individuals for their generosity in mentoring and sharing their experiences with those beginning their research journey. This seems like a good time for a reminder that all the CAARI fellowships are now open for applications! Please take a look at our website and do apply for either a graduate student, postdoctoral or senior scholar award if you are eligible.
The CAARI residence has been full with an excellent and engaged group of Erasmus and PhD students from around the globe, as well as our local researchers. Our librarian, Katerina, has done a great job of finding desk space for everyone. At the beginning of October, we celebrated Vathoulla's birthday at our regular Wednesday morning researchers' coffee morning (shown in the image) with the obligatory rich chocolate cake from Vienna Bakery (no other cake will do!).
Our next event will be a book launch on the 24th October for the volume 'Figurine Makers of Prehistoric Cyprus. Settlement and Cemeteries at Souskiou'. I'm very proud that, with Dr Diane Bolger, we were able to bring the final excavation of Professor Eddie Peltenburg of the Chalcolithic site of Souskiou to publication. Many of the contributors will be attending the launch and we look forward to a convivial event.
This is just a taste of what has been going on in Cypriot archaeological research! It is a testament to the continuing interest that the Cypriot past inspires and we invite any of you who are visiting to come and see us at CAARI to hear more.
Lindy Crewe, PhD
Director, CAARI
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Re-presentations of Antiquity in Colonial and
Postcolonial Nicosia
University of Washington / Western Washington University
Both the British colonial and independent Cypriot governments strategically deployed Cyprus' ancient past to substantiate political and cultural power and to fuel tourism. Through neo-classical works of architecture, images of art, museum buildings, and other tourism facilities, both regimes ensured that antiquity maintained relevance through physical and visual references. This deliberate, ideological deployment of classical forms constitutes the core of my current research.
Over this past summer, I completed archival research and site documentation on key structures in Nicosia that illustrate this strategy, including the Cyprus Museum, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Presidential Place, and the designs for the new Cyprus Museum. This work will facilitate a forthcoming publication on antiquity's afterlife through colonial/postcolonial built environments in Nicosia. It will also establish the foundation for an eventual comparative study of Cyprus and Tunisia. Compelling similarities and differences between the Tunisian and Cypriot contexts - in colonialist intentions and popular architectural styles - became clear to me as I worked. The place of Cyprus and its built environments within the broader realm of European colonialism remains an important area for increased analysis. This summer was productive for me, and I learned more than I could have imagined. Much remains to be done, though. I look forward to returning to Nicosia to continue this exciting work in the near future.
During my time at CAARI I visited this handful of historically significant structures (many of which are government-owned), and I explored the city itself quite extensively despite the rather extreme heat that lasted throughout most of my five-week stay. A "behind the scenes" visit to the Cyprus Museum was also very informative.
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The Cyprus Museum from above - investigating the complexities of its structural expansion over the years
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In addition to photographing extant buildings I was also able to locate the sites of some long-since lost structures using archival descriptions and other
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Archival plans and accounts of St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral - piecing together the church's past, line-by-line
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documents. Most of my time, however, was spent visiting many of the city's
rich archival collections. Highlights include many hours at the State Archives pouring over colonial-era reports, correspondence, and architectural renderings; several visits to the Press and Information Office's newspaper and photograph archives; as well as the archives of the Anglican Diocese and St. Paul's Cathedral.
I was also fortunate enough to have been welcomed at the Presidential Palace and permitted to photograph its historic exterior extensively-as seen in the photograph below.
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| The Presidential Palace's main façade- exploring an artifact of the colonial era that now in so many ways embodies the post-colonial condition. |
I have returned to Seattle with a wealth of material for my developing publication projects and teaching. Several of the sites studied will surely find their way into future architectural history lectures. I am immensely grateful to CAARI and CAORC for having provided the opportunity to once again visit Cyprus and substantially deepen my understanding of its complex history. My residency was thoroughly enriching professionally and intellectually. I enjoyed getting to know other scholars at CAARI, and sharing our diverse interests and enthusiasm for the island. The facilities and library were an ideal "home base" and I look forward to return visits. Many thanks to all those in Cyprus who contributed to my unforgettable experience this past summer.
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New Addition to the CAARI Library
CAARI is continually expanding our library holdings and we are particularly pleased with the latest addition to our holdings of material published in the Cyprus internment camps. From 1946 to 1949, the British government maintained internment camps on Cyprus for Jews attempting to immigrate to Mandatory Palestine in violation of British policy. People in the camps created and circulated handmade newspapers. Very few survive, and CAARI is proud to be able to augment its already-recognized holdings.
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Cover pages of three of the newspapers
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Acquired from the Rimon Family collection, we've added 45 issues of newspapers, as well as printed booklets and some manuscript material from the publication of one the newspapers.
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| Illustrated article in English about life in America |
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Included in the collection are
nine issues and two title pages of the newspaper "Al HaSaf", a weekly for students and graduates of the Pinhas Rutenberg JDC Seminar in Cyprus (duplicates of material we already hold, see link) as well as five handwritten drafts for articles for the newspaper with glosses and comments by the editor. These include "Le'an" (Where To), an article by Yitzchak Epstein in two different drafts, of which the final version was published in issue 15, 1948, and "Koreinu Meirim" (Our Readers Comment), an article by A.M. Vardi'ei, also in two different drafts.
Also included the collection are:
- Twenty-one issues of the newspaper "Shurot" (published by the secret representative of the Haganah in the camps of Cyprus) - Issues 1-7, 11-15, 17, 19, 21, 22, 24, 29, 35, 48, 50.
- Three issues and a special supplement of the newspaper "MiNeged" published by the "Zionist Youth" Movement in Cyprus.
- Issues 8, 10 and 11 and the supplement "Shorashim" (Roots) for Tu Bishvat of 1949.
- "Bashevi", a leaflet issued by the Scout Movement in Cyprus, 1949.
With the opening of the Jewish Museum of Cyprus in 2020, we are pleased to add to the information available about the Jewish community in Cyprus and the Cypriots who
helped Holocaust refugees in the camps between 1946 and 1949.
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Some thoughts about CAARI, and about US
Over the days in which this news-flash was being assembled and proof-read, the Syrian/Turkish border has flamed into a chaotic violence.
It is being felt especially painfully in Cyprus, where memories of Turkish aggression and American complicity in 1974 are raw. For many of us in the U.S., too, the situation is acutely painful.
It is hard to know how to respond to it usefully.
Perhaps this is a good moment to remember how very truly we believe in the importance of knowing the history, the culture, the archaeology, and the ecology of the eastern Mediterranean region.
CAARI is our part in this intellectual effort, and we believe it is a good one. Let's all commit ourselves to sustaining and strengthening it.
Respond to this moment by making a commitment to CAARI and what it stands for.
Make a gift to the Peltenburg Fellowship-Peltenburg invested his intellectual gifts heavily in both Cyprus and Syria; make a gift to the graduate student fellowships-they are what draw young scholars to the field; make a gift to CAARI itself and the many challenges of keeping it safe and state-of-the art.
Younger scholars, of course, are immersed right now in writing fellowship proposals and searching for ways to support themselves for the coming season. But pause to think what it means to be engaged with a region as sensitive as this one is. It is fascinating, but far from securely funded. Consider using this moment to start the habit of a small gift each year to support CAARI and our commitment to a knowledgeable engagement with the eastern Mediterranean.
Few goals are more central to CAARI's mission than securing our own means to support cutting-edge archaeological research, based on our own, cross-disciplinary needs and regional interests. CAARI is the only institution offering research fellowships specifically dedicated to Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean region. Help us sustain keen, vigorous research on Cyprus.
Thank you for your participation!
Annemarie Weyl Carr
CAARI VP
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