Erik Sjöqvist

Erik Sjöqvist dug the open-court sanctuary at Ayia Irini, where more than 2000 terracotta votives stood round a limestone altar, as one of eleven sites assigned to him in the Swedish Cyprus Expedition of 1927-31^1,2. He was born in 1903 and died in 1975; neither place is recorded^1,3.

Two field directors

The preface to the first volume of the expedition's publication lists Einar Gjerstad as chief, with John Lindros as architect, draughtsman and photographer, and Sjöqvist and Alfred Westholm, both holders of the Swedish licentiate, as the two men in charge of the archaeological work². Sjöqvist was assigned Ayia Irini, Lapithos, Ayios Iakovos, Paleoskoutella, Nitovikla, Trachonas, Kountoura Trachonia, Enkomi, Stylli, Idalion and Marion; Westholm took Petra tou Limniti, Vouni, Mersinaki, Soli, Kythrea, Kition and Amathus². The expedition worked from the end of September 1927 to February 1931². Göransson adds that Sjöqvist and Westholm each had a team of Cypriot workers, so that two sites could be dug at once¹. Gjerstad called him a "born archaeologist"³.

The sites

His first work was at Lapithos in the autumn of 1927, where he excavated 23 tombs at Vrysi tou Barba, dated 2075-1050 BC and rich in metal weapons and tools. From November 1927 to April 1928 he dug the Kastros necropolis there, with 30 Cypro-Geometric tombs¹. In the summer of 1928 he worked on the top of the western acropolis at Idalion, where he found a fortified sanctuary of Anat-Athena, dated 1200-470 BC, and in trial trenches below it the royal palace. In April of that year he examined the built tomb at Trachonas and explored a field at Oura; the Oura material was not published in the expedition's volumes¹.

In 1929 he excavated the sanctuary at Ayia Irini, an intact shrine with more than 2000 terracotta votives arranged round a limestone altar and seven periods of use down to about 480 BC¹. He led the excavations at Marion, near Polis, from late March to early July 1929: 98 tombs, dated 1050-150 BC^1,3. According to Westholm, as the Princeton volume reports, the team called him Erikos and, from the success of the Polis work, "Duke de Maré", the Duke of Marion³. In 1929-30 he also dug the Melia necropolis at Ayios Iakovos (14 intact tombs), 14 intact tombs at Kountoura Trachonia, the Paleoskoutella tumuli, and Nitovikla, where three intact Middle Cypriot III tombs came first and the fortress after¹.

In the summer of 1930 he began on the Enkomi necropolis. After trial trenches he found an undisturbed part with 22 rich tombs, mostly Late Cypriot II, with much Mycenaean pottery. That autumn he excavated 17 tombs at Stylli, where Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden took part¹.

Where the finds went

A division of the finds was proposed by Menelaos Markides, Rupert Gunnis and Gjerstad and ratified by the Cyprus Museum Committee on 27 October 1930. Sweden received about two-thirds of nearly 18,000 finds, divided by find-unit; about 12,000 objects and 5,000 boxes of sherds reached Stockholm in 1931¹. The Ayia Irini terracottas, though one deposit, were divided between Cyprus and Sweden. Göransson does not give Sjöqvist a part in the negotiation. Finds from his sites went both to the Cyprus Museum and to the Medelhavsmuseet in Stockholm¹.

Publication and Princeton

Sjöqvist co-wrote the volumes of The Swedish Cyprus Expedition published from 1934 to 1937, and the sections on the sites he dug are signed E. S.^2,4. In 1940 he published Problems of the Late Cypriote Bronze Age, which gave pottery classes and dates (Late Cypriote II C at 1275-1200 BC, the start of the Iron Age at 1075 BC) that G. H. McFadden still cited in 1954^3,4. The two men signed the 1954 American Journal of Archaeology report on Tomb 40 at Kourion-Kaloriziki, which McFadden's University Museum expedition had excavated in 1952. Its gold sceptre had been taken from the tomb about fifty years earlier by three tomb robbers from Episkopi and had been in Nicosia⁴.

Sjöqvist was visiting professor at Princeton University in 1948-49 and professor of art and archaeology from 1951 to 1969³. His student William A. P. Childs founded the Princeton Cyprus Expedition at Polis in 1984, where Vassos Karageorghis had suggested that Princeton continue the connection Sjöqvist began, and City of Gold is dedicated to Sjöqvist³.