Yialias valley (Ayios Sozomenos and Idalion): Catling's survey

In 1957 the Department of Antiquities survey team, with Hector Catling and Kyriakos Nicolaou, surveyed the Italian section of the Yialias valley.¹ Megaw's account of the season describes Middle and Late Bronze Age settlement as virtually restricted to the northern edge of the valley around Ayios Sozomenos, beneath protective hill-forts, with a dearth of earlier sites. Megaw states that the abandonment of the Bronze Age sites was followed by the rise of Idalium, which he associated with agricultural development. The survey also recorded derelict medieval water-mills, wheel-wells and storage tanks, among them remains associated with irrigated plantations at the Royal Manor of Potamia.¹

Satraki reports that Catling collected surface sherds at Ampelia, including Canaanite jars, Levantine ceramics and Late Helladic IIIA-B vases, with fragments of faience, ivory and bronze objects.² At Barsak, Fortin reports, Catling described visible structural remains and collected surface finds in the latter half of the 1950s.³ The sherds kept in the Survey Museum under C.S.410(450) include Black Slip II, White Painted IV Cross Line Style, several Red Polished wares and Plain White wares.³ Fortin reports that Catling dated Barsak to the Early and Middle Cypriot periods in his field notebooks, but argues from the pottery that the site belongs to Middle Cypriot II-III and most likely Late Cypriot I.³ In 1995 Fortin reported that the plateau sites were enclosed in a military zone and impossible to visit.³