To Ergon 2019: the SIMPLECS ceramic ontology, the Mazotos shipwreck and the Rural CY monastic economy project

This fourth session of the annual study day on the archaeological work of the University of Cyprus in 2019 comprises three papers on internal research programmes, the first and third given in Greek and the second in English.

Charalambos Paraskeva presents the completion of the three-year SIMPLECS project, which built a database and ontology for recording and analysing Cypriot ceramics within the framework of the SeSaLaC surface survey. Held in the system are ceramological and archaeometric records for roughly 11,500 sherds, 3,500 photographs and typological entries covering Cypriot wares from the Ceramic Neolithic to the early twentieth century AD. Paraskeva explains the design of the SIMPLECS ontology as an extension of the CIDOC-CRM standard, adding 25 classes and 32 properties specific to ceramic analysis and around 1,100 terms for shapes, wares and fabrics, with an export mechanism in RDF/XML format and ongoing integration of analogue and digital survey archives. A discussion follows on the ontology's philosophical basis and practical use.

Massimiliano Secci presents his postdoctoral project "A Living Shipwreck: Sediment Accretion and Artifact Displacement in the Mazotos Shipwreck Site", conducted in collaboration with Carlos Jimenez of the Enalia Physis Environmental Research Centre, Varvara Stivarou, Irini Katsouri and Stella Demesticha of MARELab. Applying site formation theory from Michael Schiffer and Muckelroy to the bow of the Mazotos wreck, Secci aligns photogrammetric 3D models of lifted amphorae with the 2007 pre-disturbance survey model. By plotting sedimentation marks and biogenic encrustation on the jars in 3ds Max and Rhinoceros 3D, he reconstructs two distinct seafloor interfaces and identifies a void on the starboard side of the keel where amphorae slid below the hull planking and broke at the shoulder. Questions afterwards address the dating and sequence of the two seafloor levels.

Petroula Hadjitofi introduces Rural CY, a project coordinated by Athanasios Vionis with Euphrosyne Rizopoulou-Egoumenidou, Michalis Michael and Charalambos Paraskeva, studying rural material culture and monastic economy in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ottoman Cyprus. The project digitises and analyses the Great Property Codex (Megas Ktimatikos Kodikas), begun in March 1773 under Archbishop Chrysanthos, which inventories the estates, metochia, mills, presses, livestock, crops, tools and household vessels of 212 churches and monasteries, alongside unpublished registers from the Archbishopric of Cyprus and the Metropolis of Kition. Hadjitofi outlines how these lists trace pottery from centres such as Kornos and Lapithos, copperware, textiles, cash crops and diet, and describes the MySQL and Microsoft Access database built to classify every entry across sixteen conceptual categories.