Alison K. South

Her own contributor note of 1982 says that she took a B.A. in Ancient History and Archaeology at the University of Birmingham, England¹⁷. She then undertook graduate studies in Egyptology at the University of London¹⁷. Lindy Crewe, introducing her at a lecture in 2021, placed that postgraduate study at University College London¹⁸. South worked on excavations in the British Isles and Italy, and at Ayios Epiktitos-Vrysi in Cyprus from 1969 to 1974¹⁷. Edgar J. Peltenburg, who dug Vrysi, records that in the seasons of 1972 and 1973 Todd acted as Assistant Director and Alison South as registrar¹⁹. In Crewe's 2021 account, she was digging in Cyprus in 1974 and had to be evacuated during the Turkish invasion, and she returned to the island in 1975¹⁸.

Todd and South write that in 1975, at the suggestion of Vassos Karageorghis, they examined the Kalavasos area for a multi-disciplinary project in a limited area, and that fieldwork began in 1976²⁰. South joined the staff of the Vasilikos Valley Project that year¹⁷. Also in 1976, C. Polycarpou, surveyor of the Department of Antiquities, drew their attention to a large site at the locality of Ayios Dhimitrios south of Tenta²⁰.

The Brandeis University excavation at the Chalcolithic site of Kalavasos-Ayious in 1980 was funded by the US National Science Foundation and directed by Todd and South¹⁵. She later wrote that much of the excavation at Ayious was done in emergency conditions because of the new Nicosia-Limassol road, and that a large part of the site had been destroyed²¹. Her article of 1985 in Levant gave a general survey of the objects from Ayious²¹. Christine Winkelmann reports that South noticed a link between the Ayious figurines and pits of certain types, and concluded that their distribution "is not completely accidental" and might have been shaped by how the deposits formed²². Winkelmann sets this against a direct, perhaps religious, association between figurines and pits that Peltenburg tentatively suggested²². Karageorghis included the Ayious figurines in The Coroplastic Art of Ancient Cyprus I (1991) with her permission and reproduced her own drawings of them²³. South later wrote the human figurines chapter and, with Todd, the catalogue of artifacts in the Ayious volume of 2004²². With Douglas Baird, Carole McCartney, Murray C. McClellan and Todd she also wrote the artifacts chapter of the second Kalavasos-Tenta volume in 2005²².

Rescue excavation at Ayios Dhimitrios began in the summer of 1979, when it became clear that the new Nicosia-Limassol highway would pass through the centre of the site²⁰. South directed the autumn and winter season of 1979/80 there, and by 1982 she was Assistant Director of the project¹⁷. The 1980 Chronique of excavations names the Brandeis mission at Kalavasos as "dirigée par Mlle A. K. South et M. I. Todd"¹⁵. She published reports of the 1979 and the 1980-1981 work in the Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus for 1980 and 1982²⁴. The emergency excavations continued until 1981, giving way to regular seasons in 1982, 1983 and 1984²⁵.

From 1982 the Chronique names Todd and South-Todd jointly as directors of each season: the fifth from late June to early September 1983, the sixth from late May to late July 1984, and the seventh in 1987, financed by Brandeis^6,7,16,26. Other writers name South alone. Stuart Swiny wrote in 1985 that "Alison South Todd directs the excavation of this 11.5 hectare LC IIC settlement, one of the largest in Cyprus"²⁴. Ellen Herscher placed the annual excavations "under the direction of Alison K. South" in 1995 and "under the field direction of Alison K. South" in 1998^27,28. South herself describes the project as "directed by Ian Todd and the writer"²⁹.

Building X was uncovered between 1982 and 1987³⁰. The 1987 season set out to recover its complete plan⁷. Todd and South describe a large administrative centre of about 1,400 square metres, its core a square of 30.5 by 30.5 m on a tripartite plan, with a central courtyard between two long corridors²⁰. D. J. Symons gave the building as 35 by 30 m³¹. The sources also disagree on whether it housed people: Symons wrote that its residential rooms lay on an upper floor above ground-floor storage, while South and Todd wrote in 1985 that it "bears little evidence of having been used for residential purposes"^25,31. In the same 1985 article they argued that the buildings' uniform orientation "suggests a strong measure of central urban control", and noted that about five percent of the site had been dug²⁵.

In 1990 the work explored the surroundings of Building X and found a second storage magazine to its north-west that probably once held about 46 to 50 pithoi^20,30. The 1994 season aimed to clarify the early phases of the building and the industrial installations west of it³². In Building XI a large limestone tank set in a pebble floor was shown by gas chromatography to have held olive oil³³. Todd and South concluded that settlement ended with only limited destruction in Building X and abandonment elsewhere²⁰.

Wealthy tombs dating from LC IIA to LC IIC lay beneath the street west of Building X³³. Priscilla Schuster Keswani, following South's reports, describes Tomb 11 as an intact bilobate chamber tomb holding three young adult women "very richly equipped with gold", comparable in her judgement to some of the highest-ranking individuals at Enkomi and other south-coast centres³⁴. Tombs 12, 13 and 14 held a set of three Red Lustrous arm vessels, Mycenaean imports including a chariot krater, a unique pictorial White Slip krater, a silver Hittite figurine, faience, ivories, gold jewellery and a gaming set³³. The silver figurine, a kilted man standing on a stag, is in the Cyprus Museum (K-AD 1599)³⁵. A burial complex of Tombs 18 to 20, about 150 m west of Building X, was excavated in 1995 and 1996³³.

The sources disagree on when the excavation ended. Kevin D. Fisher wrote that the work continued until 1996, Herscher that it ran annually through 1997, and Louise Steel that a final season was completed in 1997^28,36,37. South gives the Vasilikos Valley Project as running from 1976 to 1998, and Crewe said in 2021 that it ran until 1999^18,29.

With Pamela J. Russell, South noted in 1993 that the floor levels of Building X held no more Mycenaean sherds than the smaller, more domestic buildings, and argued that the distribution of Mycenaean pottery within the town "makes a solid contribution to our understanding of its social hierarchy"⁹. Manolis M. Melas questioned in the same year whether a pit in room A.173 of Building X had held rubbish from the dinner table, "even if we accept that the building was an administrative center"³⁸. Karageorghis reports that her study of the tombs led her to see in them a strong socio-political continuity at Kalavasos between the 14th and 13th centuries BC³⁹. Giampaolo Graziadio notes that in her review of the Mycenaean pottery from the tombs she assigned eight vessels to LH IIIA2 Late and thirty-seven to LH IIIA2⁴⁰.

In a paper of 2002 South-Todd concluded that the small Late Bronze Age polities of Cyprus "do not qualify as kingdoms", and that the evidence "does not support an island-wide kingdom of Alashia" because no site outranks the others²⁹. Writing with Metaxia Tsipopoulou in 2012, she observed that Cyprus "lacks obvious Bronze Age 'palaces'" and was late in building monumentally⁴¹. There she argued that Building X existed slightly earlier and was rebuilt with finer ashlar walls and storage, and judged that the Aegean-influenced character of some features of these ashlar buildings "has been rather exaggerated"⁴¹.

In 1997 A. South-Todd was a member of the French mission at Kition-Bamboula⁴². Its inventory of drawings lists hers in April 1998 and again, as draughtswoman, on 14 June 2002⁴³. On 24 February 2000 she selected Red Lustrous ware samples in the Larnaca Museum for a petrographic and chemical study⁴⁴. She, Todd and Efthymios Shaftacolas edited the English texts of the 2012 exhibition catalogue Ancient Cyprus: Cultures in Dialogue⁴⁵. In the volume in honour of Todd, she reconsidered the wall painting from Kalavasos-Tenta and redated it to around 7500 cal BC⁴⁶.

Linda Hulin, Crewe and Jennifer M. Webb edited Structures of Inequality on Bronze Age Cyprus: Studies in Honour of Alison K. South⁴⁷. Writing in it, George Papasavvas said that "it is thanks to Alison's dedicated work that we came to know one of the most important Late Cypriot urban centres"⁴⁸. He called her generosity "very well known in Cypriot archaeology", as she shared photographs, drawings, plans, notebook notes and opinions with anyone interested, from an "apparently very well organised excavation archive"⁴⁸. Steel recalled that she first came to Cyprus in 1987 to dig at Ayios Dhimitrios, and that from 1990 South gave her permission to work on the site's pottery and to publish some of its more unusual vessels⁴⁹.