Marion: the Princeton Cyprus Expedition at Polis Chrysochous

The Princeton expedition at Polis Chrysochous found a Cypro-Archaic sanctuary at Peristeries, a large ashlar building nicknamed the 'Palace', a Classical sanctuary at Maratheri destroyed in ash in 312 BCE, and Hellenistic, Roman, Late Antique and medieval buildings under the modern village^1,2. Its stated aim was to locate and describe as fully as possible the remains of the two towns thought to lie under or near modern Polis; earlier expeditions had rarely looked beyond the rich cemeteries^1,2.

Survey and first seasons

William A. P. Childs directed the expedition for Princeton University from 1983, when Karageorghis invited it to Polis^2,3. The first landowner to sign a permit allowing the team to dig on his land was Taxis Stavrou, in 1983; Peristeries was excavated by permission of the Department of Antiquities^1,4. The 1983 season was a systematic surface survey, with a map of ancient traces and nine trial trenches from the Khrysokhou river to the Myrmikoph. No stratified Archaic or Classical remains turned up in the town; tombs and small stone structures were found at Peristerios, and large Roman walls in three trenches³.

The 1984 season lasted eight weeks. Two soundings in Polis town revealed a three-aisled early Byzantine church over Roman walls on one plot, and on the other a Lusignan building with a hoard of 216 silver coins, later published by Metcalf (1990)^2,5. The team also excavated the Peristeries stone structures more fully and made a sounding at a terracotta-strewn spot that found a possible naiskos⁵. In 1986, a five-week season, the Classical sanctuary at Maratheri (8 x 8 m) was given a vestibule and stepped entrance, and the city wall beside it and the narthex of the 6th-century basilica were cleared⁶. The team laid out a grid and explored the town site over many summer seasons, training students in recorded excavation¹. Buildings and artifacts were recorded in three dimensions from the start; an early VRML system gave way to CAD by the excavation architects⁷. Childs's first preliminary report appeared in RDAC 1988⁸.

Peristeries and Maratheri

At Peristeries, Area B.D7, Joanna S. Smith discerned four architectural phases of a sanctuary, from Cypro-Geometric III/Cypro-Archaic I to early Cypro-Classical, richest in the sixth century, with a peribolos wall, main building, side building, altar and a large outside bothros. The sanctuary was destroyed by fire c. 500 BCE and rebuilt smaller, and more than 1,100 square metres of buildings and votive dedications were excavated^1,2,4. The Peristeries plan was drawn at the end of 1991, when the bothros circle was complete^4,9.

Nearby, in Area B.F8/9, lay a large ashlar building with service rooms, concrete floors and a storage and craft wing with a metalworking furnace; its final phase is dated c. 500 BCE^1,2. Nassos Papalexandrou excavated it from 1999 to 2003, after illicit construction at the north-east edge of Peristeries exposed it in 1999². Papalexandrou interpreted it as the palace of Marion, but in 2023 reopened the question¹⁰. Childs argues that three areas (B.D7, B.F9, A.H9) point to a destruction around 500 BCE, possibly connected to the Persian sack of Palaipaphos, though he notes that the evidence hardly constitutes proof, and that Marion never regained its original size². In 2006 the foreman Alexandros Koupparis found a sixth-century Egyptian relief built into the wall of the later Peristeries sanctuary building².

At Maratheri, Area A.H9, a Classical sanctuary of the fifth and fourth centuries stood over an empty footing trench of a late-sixth-century building and was destroyed in ash in 312 BCE; it held thousands of terracotta figurines, and the 4th-century city wall beside it was packed with sculpture fragments². Fist and head fragments of a colossal Egyptianizing terracotta male statue, late 6th century BCE, came from A.H9 (R2087/TC300 and R496/TC5) and are in the Local Museum of Marion and Arsinoe, Polis¹.

Petrerades

Beneath the modern village, Area E.F2 has deep stratigraphy of over four metres: Archaic and Classical walls, massive Roman foundations, the South Basilica, cleared in campaigns of 1985–1986 and 1988–1990, which received over 250 later burials, and a Roman lamp kiln^2,11. In 2003 the area was extended west and produced the first intact evidence of Hellenistic Arsinoe, a red-slipped bowl on a lime surface and a lamp². Work in 2005 exposed paved streets, walls and wells around a basilica city block².

In Area E.G0, a Hellenistic or Roman porticoed building has a concrete courtyard and a bottle-shaped cistern, 5 m deep in Najbjerg's account in City of Gold and at least 6 m in Steel's; a basilica was built over its south end^1,12. Tina Najbjerg identifies it as a possible Ptolemaic garrison station¹. In 2006 Area E.G0 was expanded north, clearing the west side of a large Roman building².

Publication and the site today

Childs 2012 gives 2007 as the end of active excavation, followed by study seasons; Childs 2008 says excavation concluded in 2006^1,2. Study seasons followed to prepare the final publication, which is still pending¹. Preliminary reports appeared in RDAC (1988, 1999, 2002, 2006), BASOR 308 (1997) and Near Eastern Archaeology 71 (2008)^{2,8,13,14,15,16}. The expedition recorded that the town of Polis has expanded into a tourist centre, with several tomb fields covered by houses, restaurants and shops¹.