Sotira-Kaminoudhia: the CAARI excavations

At Sotira-Kaminoudhia the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute exposed a stone-built settlement of about one hectare on southward-sloping terraces, with a rock-cut cemetery about 100 m to the north-north-east, and dated its activity by radiocarbon to about 2400–2174 BCE^1,2,3. Stuart Swiny directed the 1981 and 1986 seasons; in 1983 George Rapp directed the research project, and the final volume calls Swiny (archaeology) and Rapp (archaeological science) co-directors^3,4,5,6.

Aims and the 1981 season

The project was set up to investigate the poorly defined beginnings of the Early Cypriot period, the Philia Phase, in southern Cyprus, in the gap between the Chalcolithic of Erimi and the Middle Bronze Age of Episkopi-Phaneromeni³. Kaminoudhia had been chosen on the strength of surface pottery and exploratory trenches, and the season of July and August 1981 was meant to decide whether the site justified large-scale excavation⁴. A team of ten diggers sank five soundings on the uppermost terrace⁴.

In the north (Area A) the best house plan appeared: a large sub-rectangular multi-roomed stone building with a bench of saddle mortars and a lime-plastered bin. About 70 m to the south, in Area C, a massive ash-filled structure with walls 2 m thick was cleared⁴. The finds included ground stone, flint, spindle whorls, loom weights, a riveted copper knife fragment, a copper awl, serpentine ornaments, a cruciform figurine, Red Polished and some Red-on-White pottery and, in the analysis of Paul Croft, cattle bones⁴. The soundings showed a settlement of at least one hectare, and eroded tomb chambers in Cemetery A and three chambers in Cemetery B were cleared^3,4.

The 1983 season

After the first season, Swiny and Rapp applied successfully for a Department of Antiquities permit together with a matching grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities³. The University of Minnesota's archaeometry laboratory at Duluth was co-sponsor^3,7. The July and August season of 1983 aimed at an exact picture of architecture and funerary rites, then poorly known in southern Cyprus, and at the spatial organisation and stratigraphy of the settlement⁶. Alongside the dig, S. O. Held directed an intensive regional survey, John Gifford carried out geological reconnaissance and an ethnographic study of the village was made^3,6.

In Area A the excavators reported a complex of at least fifteen rooms with courtyards and corridors over 30 m, in two levels; the final publication distinguishes Phase I, with two large almost square spaces, from Phase II, in which the large spaces were subdivided and benches added^1,6. Area B, 40 m to the west, held a large courtyard measuring 8 x 6.5 m, whose collapsed north wall preserved at least 3.70 m of original height⁶. Area C, south of Area A, had a nearly square courtyard of 6 m with a vestibule and a monolithic threshold, and by the end of 1983 270 m2 of buildings had been exposed there; it produced a higher share of cattle bone than Areas A and B^1,6. A semi-contracted adolescent skeleton lay in the north room, and the 1983 report asks whether it relates to the abandonment of the site⁶.

By the end of 1983 the two seasons had yielded nearly six hundred stone tools and objects, over seventy whole or restorable vessels, twenty-five spindle whorls, about as many metal objects and fragments, and thirty-three Senet-type gaming boards⁶. Swiny wrote that the cattle at Kaminoudhia make their first unequivocal appearance on Cyprus⁷. Swiny argues that the settlement suffered earthquake damage, with walls of well-coursed tumble in Units 1, 6 and 12 falling to the south, and Rapp independently saw evidence of a possible earthquake^1,3.

The tombs

Over 1981 and 1983 the project excavated rock-cut chambers and cist graves in Cemetery A and three chambers in Cemetery B, 21 burials in all, of which only seven kept articulated skeletons; the tombs took three forms: deep bottle-shaped shafts, irregular chambers without a dromos, and a vaulted chamber with a shallow dromos^2,6,8. Tomb 6, in Cemetery A, was an irregular oval chamber 1.55 x 1.37 m with a single flexed skeleton facing east². It held Red Polished vessels, a copper awl, a dagger billet, spiral earrings of copper and tin bronze, and a pair of interlocked electrum earrings, called gold in the 1983 notice^2,3,6. According to its excavators, Tomb 6 gave the earliest known gold on the island³. The authors call it the best Philia Phase tomb of the CAARI excavations². Porphyrios Dikaios had dug a tomb in the area of Cemetery A in 1947, published only in outline in 1948².

Survey, the last season and dating

In 1984 Held and Claudia Chang conducted a weeklong survey of the pastoral system of Sotira³. The catchment survey began with a reconnaissance, followed by a 3 1/2-week systematic walk of 40 contiguous 50 m east-west transects and a week of mapping and controlled surface collection; it located only four settlement sites, plus 83 find spots³. The third and last excavation season, in August 1986, was financed entirely by INSTAP and finished Area A rooms 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 19 and 20 and corridors 32 and 33 by removing the baulks and clearing occupation debris over the Phase I floors⁵. Five copper-based objects came to light, among them the site's first metal needle⁵.

Ten AMS dates on charcoal from Oxford were published, and Manning and Swiny's best estimates for activity are 2252 ± 134 BC for Phase I and 2212 ± 119 BC for Phase II⁸. Five earlier bone dates run at ETH Zurich fell widely, from about 1900 to 800 BC, and were rejected by Manning and Swiny as unsuitable⁸. Early notices called Kaminoudhia a settlement of the Philia culture; Manning and Swiny write that vessels from certain tombs, but not the settlement, show close affinities to Philia Phase types^6,8. Swiny dates the latest occupation to about 2200 BCE¹. Swiny later concluded that the Unit 12 Complex was a focus of ritual activity, while the exact nature of the activities remains uncertain⁹.

The Department of Antiquities and the Cyprus Museum made the Kaminoudhia metalwork available for analysis, and the Department granted permission to export radiocarbon samples^3,8. The final monograph, Sotira Kaminoudhia: An Early Bronze Age Site in Cyprus, edited by Swiny, Rapp and Ellen Herscher, appeared in 2003 as CAARI Monograph Series 4³.