Salamis: Joan du Plat Taylor's cistern and Early Christian clearances

In April 1933 Joan du Plat Taylor spent a fortnight at Salamis clearing a painted cistern that shepherds had reported, funded by the Cyprus Museum Committee¹. The cistern had two circular chambers, each 16 feet deep, joined by a pair of passages; she described paintings and inscriptions in the first chamber and red crosses in the upper passages¹. Taylor says the limited budget restricted the amount of excavation above ground¹. In the small area open she recorded a burnt layer with tiles and rubbish below the latest floor, and below an earlier floor debris and pottery of Roman and Hellenistic types¹. Taylor proposed that the cistern was built probably in the first century AD, that the first building and paintings belong presumably to the late fifth or early sixth century, and that a rebuilding followed in the late sixth, dated by coins of Tiberius II and Maurice Tiberius¹. Her report appeared in The Antiquaries Journal 13¹. Karageorghis describes her 1933 excavation as on a very limited scale, mainly in Early Christian buildings².