Sanidha-Moutti tou Ayiou Serkou: rescue and excavation of the White Slip workshop

At Sanidha-Moutti tou Ayiou Serkou, about five hundred well-preserved clay "brick" fragments lay around the edges of one pit, and three seasons of digging found no kiln in situ¹. The site had been recorded by an extensive survey and surface collection in September 1988 and identified as a probable ceramic manufacturing site, but was earmarked for later excavation². In early November 1990 part of the saddle was found bulldozed, and the plot was about to be planted with fruit trees². Ian A. Todd directed two weeks of rescue excavation that month with Maria Hadjicosti of the Department of Antiquities, for the Vasilikos Valley Project^1,2. The aim was to test whether the site was a White Slip manufacturing centre².

The 1990 work opened three 4 x 4 m squares in different parts of the plot. The preserved deposit never exceeded 0.75 m. In Area I, a dense concentration of sherds and several more complete vessels, mainly without slip or paint, lay with grinders and other stone tools beside a rise in bedrock; no kilns and no complete bricks were found in situ². Todd's second and third seasons followed in the autumn and spring of 1991 to 1992, with Despina Pilides as co-author of the reports^1,3. Over the three seasons several activity areas with sherd scatters and shallow pits were located¹. Todd and South date the most significant phase of use to LC IIB, about 1400 to 1325 BC².

The 1990 excavation, Todd and South say, did not give clear proof that the site was a White Slip manufacturing centre, but it supported the survey conclusions and showed that the remains did not derive from a settlement². Steel calls Sanidha a "supposed" White Slip production centre, citing the lack of architecture in situ, the abnormally large quantities of White Slip including wasters and unslipped ware, and bricks apparently from a kiln⁴. Todd regards all the evidence as pointing to ceramic production, and Knapp calls the evidence for pottery production indisputable^1,5. Herscher reports the site as badly damaged by agricultural operations³. The seasons were published as Excavations at Sanidha 1990, 1991 and 1992 in the Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus^6,7,8.