Ancient CyprusAncient Cyprus

Series·Kourion, Penn Museum expedition

Field notes and notebooks, 1934–1954

93 manuscripts · 1934–54

Sites: Kourion, Kourion-Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates, Episkopi-Bamboula, Kourion-House of Eustolios, Kourion-Ayios Ermoyenis, Kourion-Theatre

This series holds the expedition's field notebooks of 1934–1954 and later extracts from them: 93 folders and 6,614 pages. J. F. Daniel's ten notebooks run from Kaloriziki and the city site in 1934 through "the Palace" and the theatre (March–May 1935) and the Kaloriziki and Mersinoudhia tombs (November–December 1935) to Bamboula in 1937–1939 and 1948; the first three match the seasons he published: May–August 1934, March–May 1935 and November–December 1935. George H. McFadden kept sixteen for the Apollo sanctuary (November 1935–July 1952), eight for St Hermogenes (1940–1949) and two photographic records (1949–1952). There are fourteen by DeCoursey Fales on "the Palace" and the theatre (1938–1950), two by Virginia Grace on St Hermogenes (1940–1942), B. H. Hill's site levels and surveys (1934–1937), and notebooks by J. S. Last, J. H. Young, G. Roger Edwards, D. H. Cox and R. Stillwell. Further folders hold indexes, concordances and extracts by area, tomb and trench.

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Robert Scranton based his study of the sanctuary's architecture chiefly on McFadden's records, and on Hill's for some buildings, helped by Edwards's excerpts and index of the field notes. In 1984 David Soren used Daniel's notebooks and a plan by Last to reopen Trench III of 1934 and excavate the "Earthquake House". Costello notes that the notebooks often omit basic stratigraphic relationships and find contexts.

Sources

  • Penn Museum Archives. Kourion, Cyprus Expedition records, PU-Mu 1050. Finding aid by K. T. Baxter, L. Rosen and L. Zych, 2014. Philadelphia: Penn Museum Archives. https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/UPENN_MUSEUM_PU-MU.1050 (accessed 4 November 2026).
  • Daniel, J. F. 1937. "Two Late Cypriote III Tombs from Kourion." American Journal of Archaeology 41, pp. 56–85 (esp. p. 56 n. 4).
  • Scranton, R. 1967. The Architecture of the Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates at Kourion (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 57.5). Philadelphia, p. 4 n. 6.
  • Costello, B., IV. 2014. Architecture and Material Culture from the Earthquake House at Kourion, Cyprus (BAR International Series 2635). Oxford: Archaeopress, pp. 18, 20–21.

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All series of the Kourion, Penn Museum expedition