Soli: the Swedish Cyprus Expedition (1927–1931)

At Soli the Swedish Cyprus Expedition uncovered a theatre on a rock slope below the acropolis and, at Cholades, a group of six temples, A to F, dated between the Cypro-Hellenistic and Roman periods and altered several times^1,2. Alfred Westholm was responsible for the Swedish work at Soli from 1927 to 1931^1,3, and Einar Gjerstad led the expedition and oversaw its sites on visits¹. Gjerstad called Soli the Alpha and Omega of the expedition².

The theatre and the city

Work began in October 1927 with a topographical investigation of the city and the excavation of the theatre, with trial trenches elsewhere^1,2. Winbladh gives October to December 1927 for the campaign⁴. The expedition was looking for the Temple of Aphrodite and Isis mentioned by Strabo^2,4, and in a letter to Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf in October 1927 Gjerstad wrote that he had chosen Soli as the best place on Cyprus to expect classical Greek art⁵. That search did not succeed in this campaign⁴. Gjerstad says the survey gave a clear impression of the city's plan, and gives the city wall as 1950 metres in circumference².

The theatre lay under earth, marked only by a semicircular depression. It had a stage, a semicircular orchestra and a rock-cut cavea in two sections; Gjerstad gives 70 metres between the wings and seating for 4,000, Winbladh about 3,500 spectators^2,4. Gjerstad says it had been plundered of marble by the Byzantine period². The 1928 report in Antiquity took the theatre to be Hellenistic, rebuilt in the late Roman period⁶. Gjerstad later held that no building periods could be distinguished and regarded it as one Roman unit; Winbladh gives c. AD 200 and probable disuse in the 4th century AD^2,4.

Earlier material turned up around it. Architectural fragments of an archaic Doric temple, with archaic terracotta statuettes, were reused in the theatre's filling and masonry, and a trial trench west of the theatre reached the foundations of an archaic Greek temple that was left unexcavated⁶. Gjerstad reports the remains of a Greek temple at the highest point of the acropolis, assigned to the end of the sixth century BC². Other trial trenches revealed a poorly preserved temple and walls interpreted as part of a royal palace complex; Göransson says the city was never extensively investigated¹. No tombs were excavated, since very few remained untouched⁴.

The Cholades temples

The temple area was found in the final stages of the expedition and uncovered in full, Gjerstad says, thanks to the personal interest of the Crown Prince². The dates differ by author: Göransson gives November 1930 to the end of February 1931, Winbladh June and November 1930^1,4. The expedition left Cyprus in March 1931². Gjerstad regarded the temple area as of greater interest than the theatre².

The six temples were altered several times in four periods, and marble and limestone votive sculpture was found in some quantities¹. The excavators took A and B as Aphrodite and Cybele, C and/or D as Isis, E as Serapis, Canopus and Eros in mourning, and F probably as Mithras¹. Gjerstad describes an Aphrodite temple from about 250 BC, an Isis temple rebuilt in the first century BC and a Serapis temple rebuilt about 250 AD, and reports votive sculpture in four styles that gives a datable series from about 250 BC to about AD 300². Among the finds was a marble portrait head, 33 cm high, which Westholm identified as Agrippina the Elder and thought belonged to a cult statue in the Isis temple⁷.

Papantoniou dates Temple A to about the middle of the third century BC and the Cholades complex as in use from about 250 BC to the fourth century AD. He reads it as a sanctuary developed in Ptolemaic times, whose basic architecture follows the traditional Cypriot temenos, and relates its religious syncretism to Ptolemaic power⁸.

Finds and publication

A memorandum of 1930 assigned all finds from the Temple of Isis, to be excavated by Westholm, to the Cyprus Museum, with publication rights to Sweden. It also provided that other Swedish finds be divided as provisionally agreed, and that pottery fragments go to Sweden except sherds from tombs adjudicated to the museum⁵. Westholm notes that all finds from the excavations were to be handed to the museum without any division¹. The Agrippina head is in the Cyprus Museum⁷.

Westholm published the temples as The Temples of Soli in 1936, and in 1937 the results appeared in volume III of the expedition's publication, which contains his Soli. Temples at Cholades^9,10. The Cholades temples are not visible today, having been backfilled after excavation; the theatre has been restored, according to Winbladh^4,8.