Excavation Reports 1949–1951

CYPRUS: EXCAVATIONS 1949-50 KOURION

The University of Pennsylvania Museum continued excavations under the general direction of Mr. Bert Hodge Hill on the city site of Kourion in Cyprus during the fall of 1949 and again in the following spring of 1950. During this period Mr. De Coursey Fales cleared the greater part of a theater and bathing establishment. The theater is situated on the steep slope of a hill. At the bottom of this hill there is a gully along which ran the ancient road leading from the plain of Kourion by the sea through the city on the high rocky ground immediately to the west of the broad, fertile plain. The theater faces this road. The auditorium, or cavea of an earlier theater, dating possibly to the 3rd century B.C., was incorporated into a Roman building which is to be dated to the 2nd century A.D. The Roman theater was enlarged in the 3rd century A.D. when a vaulted passage was constructed behind the back wall. Stairways lead from the orchestra through this passageway on either side of the orchestra to the paradoi to five short, stepped passages, or vomitoria, led in turn to the diazoma, the horizontal passageway that ran between the encircling tiers of seats to which it gave access. The enlarged auditorium vaulted passageway supported the top of the enlarged auditorium. This auditorium has a diameter of approximately 62 meters and seated probably as many as 3,000 people. Exactly semicircular in plan it was united to the stage building, or scaena, with the vaulted passage and paradoi to which it communicated through the vaulted passage over the vaulted paradoi to the diazoma was carried around over the vaulted paradoi to the scaenae frons. This was in marble and was decorated with tiers of superimposed columns in the Corinthian order. For a while during the middle Roman period the theater served as an arena. At this time it was possible to reach the orchestra only through the paradoi, for the lower seats were raised on a podium above it and were thus walled off to protect the audience from the wild beasts. The devastating earthquakes of the 4th century destroyed the theater which was never to be rebuilt again. Its history, therefore, would appear to embrace a period of approximately 600 years. After the final destruction of the theater in the 4th century A.D., a new building was constructed further up the hill immediately to the northeast of it. That part of this building which adjoins the theater was excavated before the War by the late Professor John Franklin Daniel of the Expedition staff. His preliminary report identifies the building as a palace. Mr. Fales has cleared what appears to be the northeast extension of this building near the top of the hill where he has found a bathing establishment. It is probable that this building was constructed not long after the year 407 A.D. A long rectangular room has a mosaic floor in four beautiful panels. The most striking of these probably is the one depicting a KTISIS figure (frigidaria) also with mosaic floors to the north and east, and through a vestibule to the west. Two built-in water basins for hot baths in marble tiles to the west. West of the tepidarium was a caldarium with two built-in water basins for hot baths, one for each room. Fires were built in two praefurnia, one for each room, drawn from praefurnium to hypocaust, up into the hollow walls. The heated air was drawn from praefurnium to hypocaust, one under the floor of each room, up into the hollow walls. Other rooms in the ensemble include apodyteria and a lavatory.