Myrtou-Pigadhes: the Ashmolean excavations

Taylor's search for an Early Iron Age settlement ended at Pigadhes, in the village lands of Myrtou, where the dig exposed a Late Bronze Age courtyard sanctuary with a monumental ashlar altar at the east end, topped by horns of consecration.^1,2,3

From trial pits to a sanctuary

Joan du Plat Taylor, back in Cyprus soon after the Second World War, wanted an Early Iron Age settlement to excavate, and Catling recalls that she found Pigadhes after an unrewarding search in the eastern Mesaoria.¹ Kiely adds that she wanted a settlement rather than tombs, and a project that trained students in stratigraphic and contextual methods.⁴ George Markou, a junior member of the Cyprus Museum staff, drew her attention to the site, and the Department of Antiquities approved more intensive exploration.¹

In summer 1949 Taylor made trials in the middle of the area covered with Iron Age pottery. They exposed an ashlar building and deep soundings that suggested earlier constructions on two levels, the lower possibly Middle Bronze Age.^1,5 Full excavation under Taylor followed in 1950, with Ashmolean support, and a second season in 1951.¹ Veronica Seton-Williams excavated with her for the University of Sydney.^5,6 Catling says Sydney assistance was added to the Oxford support in 1951, while Kiely has the Sydney partnership covering the two years after 1949.^1,4 H. W. Catling took part in 1950 and 1951, his first excavation experience.¹ Kiely names Walter Beasley as a financial supporter, and Barker says James Stewart took an active interest and helped obtain additional funding.^4,6

The sanctuary and what lay over it

Crewe, summarising the final report of 1957, gives five periods: I (MC III), II (LC I, phases A and B), III-IV (LC IIA-B) and V-VII (LC IIC-IIIA). Period I had no architecture and Period II little. A six-room unit of Periods III-IV is identified as a sanctuary, rebuilt in Period V and destroyed in Period VII, with a street to its north.³ The principal sanctuary belongs to Period V, about 1300 BC: a great court surrounded by rooms with the altar at its east end. Catling reports that the "building of excellent construction" of 1949 proved to be this altar, probably built in the 13th century BC. Dikaios's review dates its destruction to LC III, about 1175.^1,2,3 Megaw's 1951 notice had put the sanctuary in use about 1300 BC and the cult continuing in its ruins to about 800 after earthquake destruction.⁵ Crewe, after Webb, holds that the later sanctuary's main use was confined to LC IIC, with LC IIIA material perhaps only sporadic use.³

The courtyard around the altar yielded more than ten Mycenaean pots, from LH IIIA2-IIIB to IIIC, and no pottery earlier than LH IIIA:2.^3,7 Eriksson later reassigned Period II phases A and B to LC IA:2-IB and LC IIA:1.⁸ Above the altar lay a deposit of badly preserved pottery, a few terracottas, some stone and minimal metal. Catling gives a sequence from Cypro-Geometric II to Cypro-Archaic I; Megaw's notice records a few Aegean imports in it, and Dikaios's review a Cypro-Geometric revival of the cult. Birmingham says the deposit was probably closed about 700 and held fragments of life-size Cypro-Archaic I sculpture.^1,2,5,9 Among the objects were a hoard of bronze tripods and stands, described by Catling, and a red jasper amulet with the cartouche of Ramesses II.²

Catling judges that the results were not those Taylor expected, the Late Bronze Age complex taking the place of the Iron Age settlement she sought, and that the excavation was ended prematurely, leaving the site under-investigated and imperfectly understood.¹ Crewe notes that Taylor read the settlement as provincial and inland, and that the very limited exposure does not allow firm conclusions.³

Division of finds and publication

In the division of finds a Mitannian-style cylinder seal went to the Cyprus Museum, and the Nicholson Museum at the University of Sydney was allocated pottery from the courtyard and several rooms of the building.^5,6 Taylor published the excavation in 1957 as Myrtou-Pigadhes: A Late Bronze Age Sanctuary in Cyprus, with chapters by Catling on the pottery and metalwork, Seton-Williams on lamps and miscellaneous objects, D. H. F. Gray on the sanctuary and altar, Lord William Taylour with Taylor on the Cypro-Geometric pottery, and others.^2,4