Nea Paphos: the University of Sydney (Australian) excavation of the theatre

In 2023 the University of Sydney's team cleared the bedrock foundation cuts of a Roman-era royal box on the central line of the cavea of the theatre at Nea Paphos, 6 m long and up to 2.85 m wide, which the 2023 report calls the first identified at any ancient theatre on Cyprus.¹ It was the twentieth season of an excavation that began in 1995 under J. Richard Green at the theatre on Fabrika hill.^1,2

Seasons at the theatre

The University of Sydney works under the auspices of the Department of Antiquities, with funding recorded from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens and with the Nicholson Museum as a partner.³ In 1996 digging south of the theatre uncovered a massive wall of re-used blocks over a paved east-west road with a rock-cut gutter, and a 4 by 7 m trench was opened at the rear of the cavea before the Department built a viewing platform.^4,5 In 1998 and 1999 the team worked on the east part of the cavea, the north-west orchestra and the stage building, finding medieval installations of the 12th to 16th centuries everywhere.⁴ In 2002 it recovered the second fragment of the Antonine theatre inscription, found face down as a threshold at the orchestra entrance; Barker's paper on the building on Fabrika gives 2001.^3,5

From 2010 Craig Barker and Ruth Smadar Gabrieli were co-directors with Green.⁶ The thirteenth season, in October and November 2010, had over 60 participants and opened eight new trenches around the nymphaeum, the Roman road and the western parodos. A ground-penetrating radar survey of the fields south of the site looked for buildings and insula blocks, and building collapse, most probably from the AD 365 earthquake, obscured the insula outlines.⁶ The aims were to finish recording the finds and architecture for the final report on the first decade of work and to understand how the theatre related to the urban layout of the north-eastern quarter.⁶ In 2012 five trenches found the bedrock foundations of the east end of the Roman stage, more of the road, large post-theatrical buildings on the upper cavea and a post-medieval well.⁷

Barker directed the seasons of 2017 and 2023.^1,8 In 2017 three trenches defined the complete front wall of the nymphaeum, over 20 m long, and the Antonine exterior wall of the theatre.⁸ The 2019 season, with more than 70 participants, exposed a paved Roman road with wheel ruts.⁹ The twentieth season, in April and May 2023, was the first since the pandemic and worked in three areas: the royal box, the medieval building on Fabrika hill, and a trench south of the theatre over a radar anomaly.¹

The theatre and its precinct

Barker reports at least five phases. A first theatre went up shortly after the city's foundation, around 300 BC; it was remade in the 2nd century BC and enlarged in the mid 2nd century AD to an estimated capacity of up to 8,500 spectators, and in the 3rd century AD the orchestra was converted for combats and water spectacles.³ The cavea is semicircular, cut partly into bedrock and extended on artificial earthen embankments, and the earliest date rests largely on late 4th or early 3rd century BC letter-forms of an inscription on the upper seats.³ The Antonine remodelling was commemorated by an architrave inscription over 12 m long naming Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius; one part was known from 1916 and the other was found by the mission.³ In the 3rd century the orchestra was resurfaced with waterproof cement and ringed by a barrier wall about 1.1 m high that reused earlier blocks, among them the Antonine inscription.³

South of the theatre lies the nymphaeum, a building over 20 m long and about 5 m wide, with plastered walls and a star-pattern mosaic. Barker thinks it probably of the 1st century AD and earlier than the Antonine theatre, which abuts it; it faces a paved east-west road with wheel ruts and a granite colonnade.³ In 2009 the team uncovered a structure about 20 by 5 m with a mosaic floor south of the eastern parodos; its function was not yet clear.¹⁰ On the western side a geometric mosaic about 6.5 by 19 m, probably of the 5th century AD, was fully exposed in 2010.⁶

The theatre was destroyed by earthquake in the late 4th century. Barker says probably that of AD 365 or another soon after.³ Marble went to the Chrysopolitissa basilica, stone was quarried for centuries, and two inscriptions name Eustorgis. The nymphaeum became a dump for architectural elements, with ceramics from the 5th to the 7th century and possibly the 8th.³ Barker argues that this later life shows public space becoming private, with the Eustorgis inscriptions marking private ownership.³ The latest datable Late Antique find is a gold tremissis of Constantine IV (668–685).³

On the top of Fabrika hill, behind the cavea, trenches 12C and 14A exposed a building at least 20 m long and divided into three long sections, built above the rear seats and so later than the theatre. Barker reads it as post-medieval and industrial.⁵ In 2023 it was exposed over 20 by 25 m and described as a late medieval and Venetian-era structure built over part of an Early Christian cemetery, and 14 shallow grave cuts of probably the 6th or 7th century were found beneath it.¹ Barker argues that this building cannot be the Hellenistic or Roman temple of Aphrodite Paphia, against Młynarczyk's reading of bedrock cuts behind the theatre as a portico or stoa.⁵

Finds and publication

The two parts of the Antonine inscription are held in the Paphos District Archaeological Museum.⁵ The architecture is published in Green and Stennett's article in Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus for 2002, and Green, Barker and Gabrieli published a guide, Fabrika: an ancient theatre of Nea Paphos, in 2004.^11,12 Barker's 2015 paper surveys the theatre precinct over seven centuries.³ In 2023 the Department of Antiquities was carrying out substantial conservation of the site.¹