Ancient CyprusAncient Cyprus

Excavator · Archaeologist · Scholar

Danielle A. Parks

fl. 1995–2024

Excavator of the Amathus Gate cemetery at Kourion from 1995 to about 2000 and founder of the Kourion Mapping Project, whose results Michael Given was preparing for publication in 2017.

Biography

In 1995 Danielle A. Parks began excavating the necropolis below the acropolis of Kourion, at the request of the Department of Antiquities' Kourion excavator Christou and under the sponsorship of CAARI3. The aim was to work out the layout of the cemetery and its relation to the city; Cesnola is believed to have dug some tombs nearby in 18733. Over five seasons her team found three phases: contiguous chamber tombs with arcosolia from the Hellenistic period to the early 3rd century AD, a phase of quarrying, and 4th- to 6th-century cist graves2. In 1997 fourteen cist graves held at least 63 individuals. The tombs had been looted, but gold, silver and bronze jewellery, hairpins, a bronze mirror, lamps and coins were recovered1,11. Michael Given was survey director and mapper4. Preliminary reports appeared in the Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, from 1996 to 20019,10,11,12,13,14.

Archaeological Reports for 1998 describes her as of the University of Missouri1. By 2003 she gave her address as the Department of Classics at Brock University, in a review of Vassos Karageorghis's catalogues of the Severis, Berlin and Vienna collections of Cypriot art, in which she criticised the selection of pieces published and asked for full inventories7. After the cemetery project she began the Kourion Mapping Project (2004-06), a GIS and GPS plan of the acropolis2, published with D. M. Buell and C. Mavromatis in 20096.

Kiely wrote in 2017 of "the late Danielle Park's" excavations of 1995 to 2000, whose results Given was overseeing for publication4.

Life and work

  1. 1995
    Began new excavations in the Kourion necropolis (Amathus Gate cemetery) at the request of Demos Christou of the Department of Antiquities, under CAARI sponsorship; aim to clarify the layout of the cemetery and its relation to the city; excavation of individual tombs plus mapping of a wider area.

    KourionReview of archaeology in…, p. 38IV 2014, p. 28

  2. 1995–2000
    Five field seasons at the Amathus Gate cemetery. Three phases: Hellenistic to early 3rd-century Roman chamber tombs with arcosolia; quarrying (perhaps for rebuilding after the later 4th-century earthquake); 4th-6th-century cist graves. Fourteen cist graves excavated in 1997 with disarticulated multiple inhumations, minimum 63 individuals; looted tombs still yielded gold, silver and bronze jewellery, bone hairpins, a bronze mirror, lamps and coins.

    KourionSteel 1997-1998, p. 5IV 2014, p. 28Kiely 2017

  3. 1996–2001
    Preliminary reports in RDAC: 1995 season (RDAC 1996, 127-33), 1996 (RDAC 1997, 271-6), 1997 (with Given and Chapman, RDAC 1998, 171-85), 1998 (with Chapman, RDAC 1999, 259-67), 1999 (with Mavromatis and Harper, RDAC 2000, 305-16), 2000 (with Mavromatis and Harper, RDAC 2001, 233-45).

    IV 2014, p. 156Buell et al. 2009Recke 2018

  4. January 2003
    Reviewed Karageorghis's three Leventis-Foundation catalogues (Severis Collection 1999; Berlin; Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna) in AJA 107.1; noted that the Severis volume documents 257 of the more than 2,500 pieces in one of the largest private Cypriot collections, and asked for more representative selection and complete inventories as appendices.

    Parks 2003

  5. 2009
    Co-author with D. M. Buell and C. Mavromatis of 'The Kourion Mapping Project: a contextual spatial analysis of the Kourion acropolis', RDAC 2009, 261-294.

    IV 2014, p. 151

  6. by 2017
    Called 'the late Danielle Park's' by Kiely (2017); a 'Danielle Parks Memorial Fellowship' is acknowledged in a 2017 University of Virginia thesis. Date and place of death not found.

    Kiely 2017Dissinger 2017

Connections

10 people
Chris MavromatisMichael GivenR. Scott MooreNathan K. HarperD. Matthew BuellN. E. M. ChapmanTina RossVassos KarageorghisDemos ChristouL. H. SollarsDanielle A. Parks
FieldworkScholarshipColleagues

Fieldwork & employment

Scholarship

Colleagues & contacts

Sources

  1. 1.Louise Steel (1997-1998). “Archaeology in Cyprus 1987-1997”. Archaeological Reports 44, 137-149.
  2. 2.Benjamin Costello IV (2014). Architecture and Material Culture from the Earthquake House at Kourion, Cyprus. Oxford, Archaeopress.
  3. 3.“Review of archaeology in Cyprus”. 38.
  4. 4.T. Kiely (2017). “Britain and the archaeology of Cyprus II: 1914 to the present day”. Cahiers du Centre d'Études Chypriotes 47, 253-310. Online
  5. 5.M. Recke (2018). Like Herrings in a Barrel: Max Ohnefalsch-Richter.
  6. 6.D. M. Buell, C. Mavromatis, D. A. Parks (2009). “The Kourion Mapping Project: a contextual spatial analysis of the Kourion acropolis”. Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, 261-294.
  7. 7.Danielle A. Parks (2003). “Review of Karageorghis, Ancient Cypriote Art in the Severis Collection (1999); Brehme et al., Ancient Cypriote Art in Berlin; Bernhard-Walcher et al., Die Sammlung zyprischer Antiken im Kunsthistorischen Museum”. American Journal of Archaeology 107, 128-130. Online
  8. 8.Alicia Marie Dissinger (2017). “Cypro-Archaic Bird Iconography: Types, Uses, and Meanings”. University of Virginia.
  9. 9.D. A. Parks (1996). “Excavations at Kourion's Amathus Gate Cemetery, 1995”. Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, 127-133.
  10. 10.D. A. Parks (1997). “Excavations at Kourion's Amathus Gate Cemetery, 1996”. Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, 271-276.
  11. 11.D. A. Parks, M. J. M. Given, N. E. M. Chapman (1998). “Excavations at Kourion's Amathus Gate Cemetery, 1997”. Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, 171-185.
  12. 12.D. A. Parks, N. E. M. Chapman (1999). “Preliminary Report of the 1998 Excavations at Kourion's Amathous Gate Cemetery”. Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, 259-267.
  13. 13.D. A. Parks, C. M. Mavromatis, N. K. Harper (2000). “Preliminary Report of the 1999 Excavations at Kourion's Amathous Gate Cemetery”. Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, 305-316.
  14. 14.D. A. Parks, C. M. Mavromatis, N. K. Harper (2001). “Preliminary Report of Excavations at Kourion's Amathous Gate Cemetery, 2000”. Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, 233-245.