Ian A. Todd

Ian A. Todd directed the Vasilikos Valley Project, a survey and excavation programme that worked in the Kalavasos area of southern Cyprus for 23 seasons, to the summer of 1998⁶. Vassos Karageorghis, then Director of the Department of Antiquities, drew his attention to the Neolithic settlement of Kalavasos-Tenta in 1975^1,6.

Before Cyprus

Todd took his B.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Birmingham. He surveyed prehistoric sites in central Anatolia in 1964 to 1966 and assisted at Catal Huyuk, Yanik Tepe, Beidha and Ayios Epiktitos-Vrysi; he also took part in the survey at Dhali (Idalion) in Cyprus. In 1969 he began teaching at Brandeis University, in the departments of Mediterranean Studies and of Classical and Oriental Studies, and by 1978 he was an Associate Professor there¹.

The Vasilikos Valley Project

The project was conceived in 1975 and its fieldwork began in the summer of 1976, with Tenta as the first site. Brandeis University sponsored it and the US National Science Foundation funded it, under grants BNS76-12313 and BNS77-07685; the American Schools of Oriental Research joined as sponsor from late 1979^1,2. The 1976 season ran in July and August³. In 1977 the team dug at Tenta from 11 July to 23 September, with up to eleven local and refugee workmen, and surveyed the valley at the same time; Paul Croft and Alice Kingsnorth were among the staff¹. The valley survey ran from 1976 to 1989 and recorded about 135 sites⁶.

The 1979 to 1980 season took in three sites. At Tenta the team found a wall painting in building 11. At Kalavasos-Ayious they dug a Chalcolithic site. At Late Bronze Age Ayios Dhimitrios, Alison South was on the staff for a rescue excavation on the line of the new Nicosia to Limassol highway, which ran from July 1979 to February 1980. A detachment of the Cypriot National Guard helped there in November and December 1979. The Department of Antiquities supplied staff, and Karageorghis organised a protective roof over the mud-brick structures at Tenta, which was put up between February and April 1980².

From 1981 to 1986 Todd and South continued at Ayios Dhimitrios, working on Building X and on tombs. One further season at Tenta in 1984 was used to settle points before publication⁵.

The programme also dug a Middle Bronze Age cemetery at Kalavasos village and the site of Sanidha. At Sanidha the excavations of 1991 and 1992 were carried out with Despina Pilides, and the two published an account in 1993. An emergency survey and recording at Vavla-Kapsalaes was undertaken by Morden and Todd in 1994, before part of the site was destroyed. Laroumena received a test excavation in 1993⁶.

Publication

Todd published the results first as preliminary reports in the Journal of Field Archaeology, for 1977 in 1978 and for 1979 to 1980 in 1982^1,2. The excavation volumes appeared in the series Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 71. He edited Vasilikos Valley Project 6: Excavations at Kalavasos-Tenta I (1987) and Vasilikos Valley Project 7: Excavations at Kalavasos-Tenta, Volume II (2005), and with Paul Croft he wrote Vasilikos Valley Project 8: Excavations at Kalavasos-Ayious (2004)^8,9,10.