Villagers' tip about a medieval cistern explained disturbed layers at Palloures, co-director writes

At an end-of-season evening in Chlorakas, near Paphos, residents told the excavators of Chlorakas-Palloures that one of the plots they were digging held a medieval cistern and even had water flowing through it, which accounted for disturbed layers there. Maria Hadjigavriel, a postdoctoral researcher at Leiden University's Faculty of Archaeology and co-director of the dig with Bleda S. Düring and Victor Klinkenberg, tells the story in a short paper on the project's public engagement. It is one of five invited reports in Archaeologia Cypria Publica, an open-access online collection of the Association of Cypriot Archaeologists.

The same evenings, held with the community council, include children's activities and a short talk in Greek-Cypriot on the season's results. At one, the owners of a neighbouring plot said they kept finding similar sherds there, so it may belong to the settlement. Hadjigavriel also describes open days, villagers who join the students washing pottery, and secondary-school pupils considering archaeology who excavate for a few days. The council lends the Agios Nikolaos primary school as the team's base and lodging.

The excavation began in 2015 as a Leiden rescue dig set up with the Department of Antiquities; the paper describes the project as run with the University of Cyprus. Earlier this year studies of the Middle and Late Chalcolithic village looked at its cereals and at sea routes to Makounta-Voules.