Series·Swedish Cyprus Expedition

Soli: the Cholades temples

126 field photographs · 1930–31

Sites: Soli, Soli-Cholades

These 126 field photographs record the excavation of the temples at Cholades, a small valley just outside the western gate of ancient Soli on the bay of Morphou. Stone sculptures reported by the villagers led Alfred Westholm to dig a trial trench there in June 1930. After the Swedish Crown Prince visited in October 1930, the expedition and the Cyprus Museum agreed to share the cost, with all finds going to the museum without division. The excavation ran from November 1930 to the end of February 1931.

The museum filed the prints in three folders: "Soli Cholades Temples A-B" (40), "Temples C-F" (68) and "Finds in situ" (17). They show the walls, stairs and altars of the temples during clearance, and finds in place. SCE III dated Temple A to the 3rd century BC and the double temple B–C to the middle of the 1st century BC, identifying it with the temple of Aphrodite and Isis named by Strabo. Temple E, sacred to Serapis, with side cellae for Canopus and a mourning Eros, was built about the middle of the 3rd century AD; Temple F was perhaps a Mithraeum.

Westholm published the site in full in The Temples of Soli (1936). His diary is D II:2d; sculpture from the temples is among the Soli finds.

Sources

Westholm, A. 1936. The Temples of Soli: Studies on Cypriote Art during Hellenistic and Roman Periods. Stockholm, pp. 7–8 and 12–13.
Gjerstad, E., Lindros, J., Sjöqvist, E. and Westholm, A. 1937. The Swedish Cyprus Expedition: Finds and Results of the Excavations in Cyprus 1927–1931, vol. III. Stockholm, pp. 416 and 540–547.