Series·Swedish Cyprus Expedition

Vouni: the palace and finds in situ

72 field photographs · 1928–31

Site: Vouni

These 72 field photographs by John Lindros come from two museum folders on the palace at Vouni, the hilltop building on the north-west coast that Alfred Westholm excavated for the Swedish Cyprus Expedition in 1928–1929. Twenty-four, filed as "The Palace", are general views: the building from the west, the slope towards the summit, the cleared courts and stairs, repair work on the walls, and Einar Gjerstad in the palace. One shows Westholm at his desk under a plan of the palace. The other 45, filed as "Finds in situ", record objects as they were found on the floors, pots, stones and fragments of sculpture, before they were lifted; Room 107 is one of the rooms named.

The finds on the floors are discussed in SCE III with the chronology of the building. Before it was destroyed, someone hid a hoard of silver and gold in a jar under a staircase. Gjerstad put the destruction about 380 BC; Pontus Hellström has argued that the coins on which that date rests allow an earlier one, about 390 BC, and that the building was an Achaemenid garrison. See the room series (1–65, 66–135) and the excavation.

Sources

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. 277–290.
Hellström, P. 2009. "The Palace of Vouni Revisited". In Medelhavsmuseet: Focus on the Mediterranean 4. Stockholm, pp. 28–42.