Bringing Old Museum Collections to Life: An Interdisciplinary Study of Iron Age Pottery from the Cypriot Polities of Salamis, Soloi, Lapithos and Chytroi

In this short paper, given in Greek at the annual review of the archaeological work of the University of Cyprus for 2018, postdoctoral researcher Anna Georgiadou introduces MuseCo, a three-year project funded by the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation and conducted jointly by the Archaeological Research Unit and the Cyprus Museum. The project studies unpublished Iron Age pottery assemblages, dating from the 11th to the 4th century BC, that were recovered from excavations and surveys by the Department of Antiquities between 1934 and 1974 in the areas of the Karpas peninsula, the Famagusta district, Kyrenia and Morphou, now in the occupied north and inaccessible to official fieldwork.

Georgiadou outlines the project team, coordinated by George Papasavvas, which brings together Maria Dikomitou-Eliadou and Vasiliki Kassianidou for archaeometry, Despina Pilides of the Department of Antiquities, Zomenia Zomeni of the Geological Survey Department, Ayelet Gilboa and Paula Waiman-Barak of the University of Haifa, and Noémi Müller of the Fitch Laboratory at the British School at Athens. Building on Georgiadou's earlier work on Cypro-Geometric regional workshops, MuseCo extends the analysis across the Cypro-Archaic and Cypro-Classical periods to define the local ceramic styles and production of the polities of Salamis, Soloi, Lapithos and Chytroi (Kythrea), and to map their distribution in relation to the territorial organisation of the Cypriot city-kingdoms. As a methodological example, she shows how Cypro-Geometric Salaminian pottery is distributed from nearby Enkomi and Stylloi to Lysi, Achna, Alaas and Rizokarpaso, and appears as imports influencing local wares at Lapithos and Kythrea.

The project combines macroscopic and stylistic study with petrography of around 200 sherds and wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (WD-XRF) chemical analysis of about 60 sherds. The results for Lapithos will be compared with Maria Dikomitou-Eliadou's ReCyPot project for a diachronic view of the area's ceramic technology, while the Salaminian data will be compared with analysed Cypriot pottery from Tel Dor in Israel to track Iron Age trade with the Syro-Palestinian coast. Preliminary archival research in the Cyprus Museum has identified around 100 tombs for study, with dense concentrations along the Karpas peninsula and in the Mesaoria plain, substantial assemblages from Soloi and the Morphou area, whose pottery remains little known, and newly plotted burial sites at Lapithos and Kythrea.