Sinda: the Swedish expedition under Furumark

At Sinda, a Late Bronze Age town ringed by Cyclopean fortification walls, the Swedish excavation of 1947–48 recognised three periods of occupation, from the building of the wall to the abandonment of the town^1,2. Arne Furumark, Professor of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Uppsala, directed the work¹. Karageorghis describes it as a Swedish expedition directed by Furumark in 1947–48, as Göransson does; Iacovou writes of Furumark's excavation in 1948^1,3,4.

The settlement measures about 250 by 200 m, with a rampart of 800 m; Furumark and Adelman gave the area within the city wall as about 46,500 square metres, and only a fraction of it was excavated⁴. The excavators worked in three areas: the Northwest Area, which included Tomb 1, the Gate Area and the South Area². Kreimerman notes that the town was excavated in narrow trenches, which limited understanding of the wider context of the finds⁵.

Vassos Karageorghis made his first excavation in Cyprus at Sinda in 1948⁶. Leriou and Vavouranakis write that Symeon Klonaris trained him in stratigraphic excavation and Elias Markou in drawing plans, both men having worked with the Swedish Cyprus Expedition; they take this to indicate that stratigraphic recording and plans were part of the work⁶.

The three periods

In Period I, dated LC IIC, the Cyclopean wall was built around the town, and the period ended in destruction; fire evidence with restorable pottery came from the Northwest Area and the gate^2,5. The town was rebuilt as Sinda II, which also suffered destruction. Limited rebuilding in Sinda III preceded abandonment². A building in the South Area was burnt in Sinda II; Sinda III is poorly preserved and may represent squatter activity, and no destruction was found for it⁵. Göransson dates the settlement as a whole to LC IIC2 to LC IIIA2¹.

Pilides summarises Furumark's pottery report. Period I produced Mycenaean IIIB in great quantity, White Painted Wheelmade III, Monochrome, Base Ring II and Bucchero; Period II produced locally made Mycenaean IIIC:1b in large quantities, still in use in Period III⁷. Furumark dated the building of the settlement to the end of LC IIC, about 1230, from his Mycenaean IIIB chronology, and correlated the destruction of Period I with Enkomi Level IIB. He placed Period III in LC IIIA:2 and its abandonment at 1150 BC⁷. Kling cautions that dating Period II to LC IIIA1 and Period III to LC IIIA2 on the presence of Elaborate Style pottery rests on a very small sample of ceramics⁷. Graziadio cites from the 2003 publication a Rude/Pastoral Style krater with a bull from Tomb 1, and shallow angular bowls from the Gate Area assigned to the end of Period I or the transition to Period II². Broken sculpture of various styles, mainly Archaic and Classical, lay on the site, probably from a nearby temenos¹.

Reading Sinda

Iacovou writes that the unanimous impression is that Sinda was not a primary urban centre but Enkomi's protégé⁴. Pilides records that Karageorghis and Demas saw the settlement as founded by newcomers whose aim was the occupation of Enkomi, and Karageorghis (1990) as possibly guarding the copper route⁷.

Finds and publication

The finds were divided between the University of Uppsala and the Cyprus Museum, and the Uppsala share is in the Museum Gustavianum¹. Göransson reports that most of the finds that stayed in Cyprus, stored in the Famagusta Museum, are now lost¹. Paul Åström studied the finds stored in Famagusta in 1970 and wrote the finds account in the 2003 publication¹. Furumark published The Excavations at Sinda: Some Historical Results in Opuscula Atheniensia 6 in 1965, and Furumark and Adelman's Swedish Excavations at Sinda, Cyprus appeared in 2003^8,9.

Karageorghis reported in 1969 that the Department of Antiquities could not exercise control in the area for political reasons and that the site had been entirely destroyed in recent years³.