To Ergon 2019: Pleistocene Cyprus, Salaminian Pottery, Modern Aphrodite and Ayios Sozomenos

This Greek-language session of the annual review of archaeological work at the University of Cyprus features four papers by postdoctoral researchers, chaired by Maria Iacovou.

Theodora Moutsiou presents the PLACE project, coordinated with Vasiliki Kassianidou, which investigates possible Pleistocene human presence on Cyprus before 12,000 BP. Noting that Palaeolithic hominins reached Crete and Australia by sea, Moutsiou outlines predictive geospatial modelling based on topography, fresh water and chert sources, alongside survey of river terraces and rock shelters and re-examination of pre-Neolithic lithic assemblages collected in the 1970s at Zygi, Ayia Anna, Kalo Chorio and Choletria. She also reports on synchrotron XRF trace-element analysis of picrolite from the Troodos mountains. Questions address sea-level change, bathymetric data, the inaccessible coast in the occupied north and rock shelters at Akrotiri.

Anna Georgiadou introduces the MUSECoM project, directed by George Papasavvas with Maria Dikomitou-Eliadou and Despo Pilides, examining Iron Age tomb groups excavated before 1974 around Salamis, Soloi, Lapithos and Chytroi and held in the Cyprus Museum. Focusing on eastern Mesaoria and the Karpas peninsula, Georgiadou maps 32 burial sites from the Cypro-Geometric to the Cypro-Classical period and defines the ceramic output of the Salaminian workshops. She illustrates its pale or reddish clays, thick white slip and preference for Bichrome ware alongside White Painted ware across diagnostic shapes: barrel jugs, belly-handled amphorae with lozenge and floral lotus friezes, trefoil-lipped oinochoai with eye ornaments, high-footed skyphoi and shallow bowls bearing the Maltese cross. Discussion follows on continuity at the cemetery of Alaas-Gastria.

Giorgos Papantoniou, presenting joint work with Christine Morris, traces the ancient cult and modern social biography of the Cypriot Aphrodite. From Iron Age representations of the goddess with uplifted arms and inscriptions naming the Paphian kings as priests of the local goddess, the deity is first called Aphrodite in an inscription from Amathus around 310 BC. Papantoniou contrasts this complex ancient deity with modern commercial and state iconography centred on the Roman statue of Aphrodite from Soloi and on Petra tou Romiou, examining tourism campaigns, British colonial coins of 1955, Republic of Cyprus banknotes and stamps, and the shift toward prehistoric symbols such as the Chalcolithic cruciform figurine on the two-euro coin.

Ourania Perdiki, working on a Byzantine and medieval pilgrimage project directed by Athanasios Vionis, examines the rock-cut hermitage of Ayios Sozomenos near the abandoned village northeast of Nicosia. Cut into a hillside with the saint's tomb, a holy well and a sanctuary, the cave preserves wall paintings from the late 10th or early 11th century and a main cycle from the first half of the 14th century. Perdiki analyses ten surviving scenes of the saint's life, divided between healing miracles and five episodes involving the Bishop of Kition and an enigmatic figure in a blue kamision and granatza, connecting the 14th-century cult to Lusignan royal patronage near the royal fief of Potamia.