Archaeologist · Excavator · Scholar
Lærke Recht
fl. 2007–2025
Professor at the University of Graz who excavates the Late Bronze Age site of Erimi-Pitharka in the Kouris Valley and co-edited a 2023 volume on prehistoric Cyprus.
Biography
Lærke Recht excavates Erimi-Pitharka, a Late Bronze Age site in the Kouris Valley of Cyprus. A contributor note of 2023 gives her post as Professor of Early Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Graz and records her work at Erimi-Pitharka and in the Tell Mozan Project in Syria2.
The Department of Antiquities of Cyprus had dug at Erimi-Pitharka in rescue campaigns between 2007 and 2012, exposing Late Cypriot I-II architecture and two tombs2. Recht presented "New Austrian-Polish-Italian Excavations at LBA Erimi Pitharka" as a keynote at the 2022 Postgraduate Cypriot Archaeology meeting in Graz3. In the report on the 2024 season, written with Katarzyna Zeman-Wiśniewska, Brigid Clark and Mari Yamasaki, the site is described as a Late Cypriot IIC-IIIA regional centre for producing and storing grain, olive oil and wine, with a large building in Area I/1A1.
With Teresa Bürge she edited Dynamics and Developments of Social Structures and Networks in Prehistoric and Protohistoric Cyprus (Routledge, 2023) and wrote its introduction2.
Life and work
- 2007–2012Background, not Recht's own work: rescue excavations by the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus at Erimi-Pitharka (cited from Papanikolaou 2012) found LC I-II architecture and two tombs; the site Recht's team later excavated.
- 2022Gave a keynote, 'New Austrian-Polish-Italian Excavations at LBA Erimi Pitharka', at the 19th Meeting of the Postgraduate Cypriot Archaeology (PoCA), Graz; this is the earliest record of the project in our material.
- 2023Co-edited Dynamics and Developments of Social Structures and Networks in Prehistoric and Protohistoric Cyprus (Routledge) with Teresa Bürge, and co-wrote its introduction.
- 2024Excavation season at Erimi-Pitharka (LC IIC-IIIA regional centre in the Kouris Valley, specialising in storage and production of grain, oil and wine; large building in Area I/1A). Recht is lead author of the 2024 season report.
Connections
5 peopleFieldwork & employment
- Excavated with Brigid Clark2024
- Excavated with Katarzyna Zeman-Wiśniewska2024
- Excavated with Mari Yamasaki2024
Scholarship
- Wrote with Sabine Sturmann2022
- Wrote with Teresa Bürge2023–2024
- Wrote with Brigid Clark2025
- Wrote with Katarzyna Zeman-Wiśniewska2025
- Wrote with Mari Yamasaki2025
On Ancient Cyprus
2 pagesSources
- 1.Lærke Recht, Katarzyna Zeman-Wiśniewska, Brigid Clark, Mari Yamasaki (2025). “Excavations at Late Bronze Age Erimi-Pitharka, Cyprus: The 2024 season”. Internet Archaeology 69. Online
- 2.T. Bürge (ed.), L. Recht (ed.) (2023). Dynamics and Developments of Social Structures and Networks in Prehistoric and Protohistoric Cyprus. Routledge.
- 3.Institut für Antike, Universität Graz (2022). 19th Meeting of the Postgraduate Cypriot Archaeology in Graz, 1-3 December 2022 (programme). Institut für Antike, Universität Graz.