Episkopi-Serayia: the Department's sugar-mill excavations

Directed by

• Marina Solomidou-Ieronymidou1988–1997
• Athanasios Papageorghiou

Team

• Mary Chamberlain

• Department of Antiquities of CyprusSponsor

1. 1988four-week campaign

   Four-week campaign on the medieval sugar mill site, second Cypriot industrial archaeology project after Kouklia-Stavros. Works in 1988 uncovered the whole crushing platform (10.8 x 7.45 m) and the underground chamber of the hydraulic mill (9.32 x 5.9 m, barrel-vaulted, well preserved). Exposed in full the crushing platform (10.8 x 7.45 m), the underground chamber of the water mill (9.32 x 5.9 m, vaulted), an eleven-step staircase, the mill channel, a square basin, and the circular track with one millstone in situ (found 1986) and a second millstone blocking the ...

   Directed by M. Ieronymidou[2]

2. 1993

   Cleaning of the western part of the medieval sugar mill: parallel wall 4.40 m long (west wall of third store, possibly Ottoman addition); large millstone 1.35 m in diameter and 0.60 m thick (possibly not in place); distillery second hearth modified, blocked entrance; small part of stone conduit. Finds include a conical vessel of the smallest known size used for distilling sugar.

   Directed by Marina Ieronymidou[4]

3. 1994

   Excavation of the medieval sugar mill, owned by the Venetian Cornaro family, in the distillery sector: a fourth hearth room found, with two hearths, organised like the first three; probably the last of the series, its west angle formed by two thick walls (1.26 m and 0.80 m).

   Directed by Marina Iéronymidou[5]

4. 19952 October - 3 November 1995

   Aim: extend excavation west and north of the boiling hearths where sugar was brought to the boil. Continuation in the west part of the site; much debris excavated. Few but important architectural remains after the north-west corner of the large oblong boiling area was found. Boiling area about 24.70 m long, 9.10 m wide on the west side and 9.90 m on the east side. At least one more large room/area lies north-west of the boiling area. Excavation continued in the western part of the medieval sugar mill of the ...

   Directed by M. Ieronymidou[6]

5. 1996cette année

   Extension of the excavation west of the space where sugar paste was boiled, at the medieval sugar mill of the Cornaro family; in the west sector of the modern debris, remains of modern walls and a medieval wall beneath one of them. Clearance completed of the vaulted undercroft housing the mill wheel; a later raised structure with two iron wheels and two bronze wheel fittings in place; the outlet of an aqueduct siphon; wooden wheel fragments of the first phase; boiling-space chambers and a refinery furnace entrance with bricks and ...

   Directed by M. Iéonymidou[7]

6. 1997

   Excavation of the area immediately west of the aqueduct of the medieval sugar mill, owned by the Venetian Cornaro family. Two contiguous east-west squares opened; later north-south and west-facing walls found. The west wall of the aqueduct is inclined inward by 16 cm below 1 m depth.

   Directed by M. Solomidou-Ieonymidou[8]

1. 1.S. Rogge, M. Grünbart, 2015, Medieval Cyprus. A Place of Cultural Encounter.
2. 2.Louise Steel, 1997, Archaeology in Cyprus 1987–1997, Archaeological Reports 44.
3. 3.Ellen Herscher, 1995, Archaeology in Cyprus, American Journal of Archaeology 99.