Sydney Cyprus Survey Project (Politiko and Mitsero foothills)

The Sydney Cyprus Survey Project located a small copper-smelting workshop at Politiko-Phorades in 1996, on the bank of an ancient creek; it was later excavated by a joint team from the University of Glasgow and the University of Cyprus^1,2. The later excavation of Phorades was directed by Knapp and Kassianidou³. The survey itself was directed by A. Bernard Knapp of the University of Glasgow, with Vasiliki Kassianidou of the University of Cyprus in charge of recording and analysing the mining and smelting remains^1,2. Michael Given was first author of the 1999 interim report⁴.

The project set out to examine settlement pattern in relation to the exploitation of metallurgical and agricultural resources¹. Its survey universe was the contact between the igneous, metal-bearing ore bodies and the sedimentary, arable soils⁴. Work began in 1992 and continued in 1993, 1995, 1996 and 1997, followed by a study season in summer 1998⁴. Teams of five walked at 5 m spacing in units 25 m wide and no more than 100 m long, collecting pottery, lithics, metals and slag. Places of Special Interest and Special Interest Areas were added for closer work⁴. From 1996 the survey extended into lower sedimentary soils, and in 1997 resurvey and seeding experiments tested the repeatability of the method⁴. The survey recorded 1667 units, 11 Special Interest Areas and 126 Places of Special Interest, and showed mining from the Bronze Age to the Late Roman period⁴.

Slag heaps exposed by modern quarrying were recorded in section; Mitsero-Sykamies and Mitsero-Kouloupakhis are very large Late Roman heaps, and wood-supported galleries at Mitsero-Kokkinoyia were radiocarbon dated in three phases, from the 9th to 7th centuries BC to the 3rd to 5th centuries AD². Kassianidou, a participant, regards the discovery of the Phorades workshop as perhaps the most important achievement of the project's archaeometallurgical side². Given and Knapp published the final volume, The Sydney Cyprus Survey Project: Social Approaches to Regional Archaeological Survey, as Monumenta Archaeologica 21 (Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA) in 2003⁵.