Lapithos: the Pennsylvania Cyprus Expedition

At Vrysi tou Barba, Lapithos, the Pennsylvania expedition dug 38 chamber tombs numbered 801 to 838, running from Early Cypriot II to the end of Middle Cypriot III; the latest, Tomb 804, held 74 bronzes, a quarter of all the bronzes of the season¹. Bert Hodge Hill directed the work for the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania^1,2. Davis calls 1931 the first organised appearance of American archaeology on Cyprus³.

The season

Hill surveyed in May and June 1931 and began formal excavation at Lapithos in September 1931, and the work stopped in 1932 for lack of money⁴. The staff were Lucy Talcott, Virginia Randolph Grace, who supervised the excavations, and the architect Dorothy Hannah Cox, who drew the tomb and cemetery plans^1,2,5. Diakou reports that within four months the team had excavated 65 Bronze and Iron Age tombs, while her table of cemeteries lists 38, 20 and 16 tombs, 74 in all^2,4.

The expedition's records are in the Penn Museum Archives: excavation journals, tomb plans, tomb photographs taken during excavation, cemetery plans and permits². Tombs were measured from fixed reference points, such as the school outhouse at Kato Kastros, and the three areas at Vrysi tou Barba were dug separately^1,2.

Vrysi tou Barba

The Bronze Age cemetery at Vrysi tou Barba lay in three areas about 500 metres apart, and the tombs had a vertical dromos with one to four chambers, rock-cut piers and raised niches¹. The earliest tombs were in the west and the latest, Tomb 804, farthest from the sea; bronzes appear in quantity only from Early Cypriot IIIB¹. Many dromoi had miniature burial chambers, and the latest tomb had eighteen, holding miniature pots and tiny rings; bits of a child's forehead bone in Tomb 804F showed, Herscher writes, that these were infant burials¹.

Tomb 806A was the largest and richest tomb of late Early Cypriot III date and contained an imported Middle Minoan I jar that Grace published¹. Herscher identified at least seven White Painted ware painters who supplied both Swedish and Pennsylvania tombs, and reported only one fragmentary Red Polished plank figure and a bull figurine among the cult items¹. She notes that the cemetery went out of use at the beginning of Late Cypriot and that, given its size and rich contents, no associated settlement has been found¹.

The Geometric cemeteries and Prostemenos

The Lower Geometric cemetery at Airkotissa, on the coast, yielded 20 tombs, T. 451 to 470, with poorer assemblages than the Upper Geometric cemetery; Diakou reads it as a distinct Cypro-Geometric community². At Kato Kastros, in the centre of the village, the team dug 16 tombs, T. 471 to 486, on the slopes of the Kastros plateau, with the first trenches in plot 40, east of the boys' school². Diakou argues that with the Swedish Kastros tombs they form one cemetery of 48 chamber tombs, and thinks the names Upper Geometric and Kato Kastros were probably labels given by the excavators². Tomb 474 was the richest Cypro-Geometric tomb the team dug².

At Prostemenos, southeast of the village, the expedition excavated the scant remains of a sanctuary of the Classical period². Pieridou published Tomb 474 in 1965 as the "Prostemenos tomb"; Diakou says this attribution is erroneous, since Prostemenos is a separate locality and the tomb belongs to the Upper Geometric cemetery².

Finds and publication

Most published pieces carry Penn numbers UM 32–27 and UM 69–35, among them a Red Polished bird from a large milkbowl, 802A.3 (UM 32–27–19)^1,4. The finding aid also lists objects retained by the Cyprus Museum⁴. Under the Antiquities Law of 1905, Diakou says, Tomb 474 was the only tomb awarded to the Cyprus Museum².

Grace published Tomb 806A in the American Journal of Archaeology 44 in 1940¹. Herscher's 1975 survey of the material in Philadelphia covers 37 tombs other than 806A¹. Diakou holds that, despite three cemeteries and many tombs, the results remained mostly unpublished². The Airkotissa tombs are unpublished apart from Donohoe's 1992 study².