Ancient CyprusAncient Cyprus

Excavator · Archaeologist · Scholar · Cataloguer

Emily T. Vermeule

fl. 1970–1990 · United States

Harvard Aegean archaeologist who directed the 1971-73 excavation of the Bronze Age mound of Toumba tou Skourou near Morphou and co-wrote the corpus of Mycenaean pictorial vases with Karageorghis.

Biography

Emily Vermeule opened the excavation of Toumba tou Skourou, a mound north of Morphou, in 1971 for the Harvard University Archaeological Expedition to Cyprus. The mound was already known to tomb robbers, and mechanical levelling had damaged it before it was expropriated1. The first season uncovered walls of red stone laid in a herringbone pattern and a mudbrick platform read as a copper-working installation1,6.

The second season ran from 3 July to 2 September 1972. It added five tombs and what she described as the only known industrial installations of the early Late Bronze Age, and she cited the first soundings of the late Porphyrios Dikaios2. Kyriakos Nicolaou reports that both she and Cornelius C. Vermeule III headed the season and that it yielded the rich burial of a Mycenaean girl, with ostrich eggs and a lapis lazuli cylinder seal4. The 1973 season, the last, was directed by both, under Harvard and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; she interpreted the site as a potters' quarter on the western edge of a city founded around 1600 BCE3,5.

She published the site in Toumba tou Skourou: The Mound of Darkness (1974) and, with F. Z. Wolsky, in the final report of 19909,10. In 1974 she reviewed Dikaios's Enkomi in the American Journal of Archaeology12. With Vassos Karageorghis she wrote Mycenaean Pictorial Vase Painting (1982), which collects Aegean-style pictorial vases, many from Cypriot sites such as Enkomi and Kouklia11,17.

Life and work

  1. 1971
    Directed the first season of the Harvard University mission at Toumba tou Skourou, north of Morphou: fish-bone-pattern red-stone walls of late MC III / LC I and a mudbrick platform read as a copper-working 'industrial acropolis'; the site was already known to tomb robbers, had had trial soundings, and had been badly damaged by mechanical levelling before the land could be expropriated.

    MorphouKarageorghis 1972Nicolaou 1976

  2. 1972
    Directed the second season (3 July-2 September): five tombs, rich pottery and the earliest known industrial installations of the early Late Bronze Age; the report cites the 'regretted P. Dikaios's' first soundings and the limited plot owned by the Department of Antiquities. Nicolaou's note names both Vermeules as heads, and describes a Mycenaean girl's burial, ostrich eggs, ivory boxes and a lapis lazuli cylinder seal.

    MorphouKarageorghis 1973Nicolaou 1973

  3. 1972
    Named with others in the preface of the MFA's Art of Ancient Cyprus catalogue as one of those responsible for it.

    BostonVermeule 1972

  4. 1973
    With C. C. Vermeule III directed the final campaign of the Harvard University and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston mission at Toumba tou Skourou, interpreted as the western edge of a city founded c. 1600 BCE, here its potters' industrial quarter.

    MorphouKarageorghis 1974Nicolaou 1975

  5. 1974
    Published Toumba tou Skourou: The Mound of Darkness (MFA Boston and Harvard) and reviewed Dikaios's Enkomi. Excavations 1948-1958 in AJA 78.

    BostonCsornay-Caprez 2000Vermeule 1974, pp. 86-88

  6. 1982
    With V. Karageorghis published Mycenaean Pictorial Vase Painting (Cambridge, Mass. and London), the standard corpus of Aegean-style pictorial vases, many from Cypriot sites such as Enkomi and Kouklia.

    Cambridge, Mass.Crewe 2009Catling 2020

  7. 1990
    With F. Z. Wolsky published the final report Toumbatou Skourou: A Bronze Age Potters' Quarter on Morphou Bay in Cyprus (Cambridge, Mass.); cited in later literature for the tombs, pottery and a bull-skull deposit.

    Cambridge, Mass.Childs et al. 2012Toumazou et al. 2011

Connections

9 people
Cornelius C. Vermeule IIIVassos KarageorghisF. Z. WolskyPorphyrios DikaiosClaire BlackwellMary ComstockJuliet ShelmerdineMary HollinsheadPenelope TruittEmily T. Vermeule
FieldworkScholarshipColleagues

Fieldwork & employment

Scholarship

Colleagues & contacts

On Ancient Cyprus

4 pages

Sources

  1. 1.V. Karageorghis (1972). “Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1971”. Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 96.
  2. 2.V. Karageorghis (1973). “Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1972”. Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 97.
  3. 3.V. Karageorghis (1974). “Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1973”. Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 98.
  4. 4.Kyriakos Nicolaou (1973). “Archaeological News from Cyprus, 1972”. American Journal of Archaeology 77, 425-433.
  5. 5.Kyriakos Nicolaou (1975). “Archaeological News from Cyprus, 1973”. American Journal of Archaeology 79, 125-134. Online
  6. 6.K. Nicolaou (1976). “Archaeology in Cyprus, 1969-76”. Archaeological Reports 22.
  7. 7.Cornelius Vermeule (1972). Art of Ancient Cyprus. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
  8. 8.E. Vermeule, C. Vermeule III (1970). “Aegean Gold Hoard and the Court of Egypt”. Curator: The Museum Journal.
  9. 9.E. T. Vermeule (1974). Toumba tou Skourou: The Mound of Darkness. A Bronze Age Town on Morphou Bay in Cyprus. Boston, Harvard University and Museum of Fine Arts.
  10. 10.E. D. T. Vermeule, F. Z. Wolsky (1990). Toumba tou Skourou: A Bronze Age Potters' Quarter on Morphou Bay in Cyprus. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University-Museum of Fine Arts Boston Cyprus Expedition.
  11. 11.E. Vermeule, V. Karageorghis (1982). Mycenaean Pictorial Vase Painting. Cambridge, Mass. and London.
  12. 12.E. Vermeule (1974). “Review of P. Dikaios, Enkomi. Excavations 1948-1958”. American Journal of Archaeology 78, 86-88.
  13. 13.Boldizsár Csornay-Caprez (2000). Cypriote Antiquities. Rome, L'Erma di Bretschneider.
  14. 14.W. A. P. Childs (ed.), J. S. Smith (ed.), J. M. Padgett (ed.) (2012). City of Gold: The Archaeology of Polis Chrysochous, Cyprus. Princeton, Princeton University Art Museum.
  15. 15.M. K. Toumazou (ed.), P. N. Kardulias (ed.), D. B. Counts (ed.) (2011). Crossroads and Boundaries: The Archaeology of Past and Present in the Malloura Valley, Cyprus.
  16. 16.Lindy Crewe (2009). “Feasting with the dead? Tomb 66 at Enkomi”. Ancient Cyprus in the British Museum: Essays in Honour of Veronica Tatton-Brown, 27-.
  17. 17.H. W. Catling (2020). Kouklia: Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Tombs at Palaepaphos 1951-1954. Oxford, BAR Publishing.