Kourion: the Kourion Urban Space Project (Building 4)

In 2013 excavators beside the Earthquake House at Kourion found that an apparent natural hill was formed by the remains of a large structure, later called Building 4.^1,2 Thomas W. Davis had started the Kourion Urban Space Project the year before, to understand the urban domestic space of Kourion and, by extension, late Roman Cyprus. The project initially planned to build on the work of the Arizona team at the Earthquake House.² The preferred area next to the Earthquake House was not available in 2012; Areas A to C were test units nearby, and Area D was dug at the request of the Department of Antiquities to rescue three eroding mosaic floors.^2,3 Area C held a plastered basin of 9.6 x 1.7 x 0.82 m, which Davis interprets as possibly the reflecting pool of an affluent house.² He reads the 2012 results as an early Byzantine neighbourhood first occupied after the 4th-century earthquakes.²

Building 4 is estimated at about 20 m wide and 70 m long, with imported marble and porphyry, painted plaster, carved gypsum and limestone trim, and high-quality glass.¹ Preliminary analysis of pottery below the tumble indicates that it was destroyed in the earthquakes of the late 4th century and not rebuilt; the authors of the 2018 report say it served the elite, as either a public building or a private residence.¹ The 2014 season recovered the commingled remains of four individuals, an adolescent, a child, a young child and an infant, studied by Anna Osterholtz. Laura A. Swantek and Lucas Grimsley suggest that they may have been inhabitants, squatters, or people seeking refuge killed by falling walls.¹ The 2018 season traced the northwest perimeter wall; in Room 35 it found a restorable cookpot and lid and six copper-alloy coins, four of Valens and one of Julian II. Room 35 also held part of an Egyptian mosaic glass plate about 60 cm across and a 4th-century cage cup.¹

The project was supported by the Charles D. Tandy Institute of Archaeology and the Australian Institute of Archaeology, with help from the University of Cyprus.¹ Davis published the 2012 season in Cahiers du Centre d'Etudes Chypriotes, and Swantek and Grimsley's report on 2018 was submitted to the Report of the Department of Antiquities in May 2019.^1,2 A notice for 2022 reports a broken marble statue of a boy holding a likely duck, face down on a mosaic floor, and says Building 4 may date from as early as the 2nd century CE.⁴ A notice of 23 July 2024 says the final season completed Building 4, with nine interior rooms excavated, and reports a marble Artemis and the remains of four earthquake victims with coins, keys, lamps and jewellery.⁵