Excavator · Scholar · Cataloguer
Luca Bombardieri
fl. 2007–2024 · Italy
Archaeologist who published the Kouris Valley Survey and the Erimi-Laonin tou Porakou excavations and writes the history of Italian collecting in Cyprus, from Mariti to Cesnola.
Biography
Luca Bombardieri edited the final publication of a Middle Bronze Age community at Erimi Laonin tou Porakou and has also written the history of how Italians collected in Cyprus. With D. Fossataro, D. Menozzi and A. M. Jasink he published the preliminary report of the 2008 season of the Kouris Valley Survey Project4. In 2017 he edited the results of the Erimi excavations as Erimi Laonin tou Porakou. A Middle Bronze Age Community in Cyprus6. A 2012 study of his deals with the stratigraphy and chronology of the workshop complex there5.
His historical work includes a 2015 study of Luigi Palma di Cesnola and his Italian correspondence9, a 2017 article on a possible Cypriot origin for an Assyrian stone mixing bowl in the Cesnola collection10, and the 2024 book From Exploration to Exploitation on three Italian travellers of the late eighteenth century, among them Giovanni Mariti and Domenico Sestini. The book argues that their practices fed an extractivist model later reproduced by foreign expeditions and clandestine digging1. With Elisa Panero he edited the catalogue of the 2021-22 Turin exhibition Cipro. Crocevia delle civilta, which includes his chapter on the history of the city's Cypriot collections14.
Life and work
- 2007Research project in the Kourion hinterland, the Kouris Valley Survey, begun by M. Jasink and L. Bombardieri of the Universities of Florence and Turin: fourteen sites found, mostly Cypro-Geometric to Hellenistic-Roman; the Italian mission then chose Erimi-Laonin tou Porakou to excavate.
Kouris valley
- 2008–2014Excavated Erimi-Laonin tou Porakou, a final Middle Cypriot-Late Cypriot I settlement: a probable textile-related workshop complex (Area A), domestic area (Area B on the lower terrace), small cemetery (Area E). A second source says the Italian mission has investigated the site systematically since 2009, as a joint project of Turin and Florence with the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus.
ErimiBombardieri 2017
- 2009Published with D. Fossataro, D. Menozzi and A. M. Jasink 'The Kouris Valley Survey Project: 2008 Preliminary Report', RDAC.
- 2015Published Orgoglio e pregiudizi: the Cypriot archaeology of Luigi Palma di Cesnola in the light of documents and correspondence with Italy; also on a possible Cypriot origin for an Assyrian stone mixing bowl in the Cesnola Collection (Metropolitan Museum Journal 52, 2017).
- 2017Edited Erimi Laonin tou Porakou. A Middle Bronze Age Community in Cyprus. Excavations 2008-2014 (SIMA 145).
- 2019Published on Giovanni Mariti's 1767-1776 discovery at Larnaca and his donation to the Accademia Etrusca of Cortona (the donation, 12 Aug 1776, was three Roman coins of Caracalla, Geta and Julia Domna, per Bombardieri's 2024 book).
CortonaBombardieri 2024, p. 38
- 2021With Elisa Panero edited the catalogue of the exhibition Cipro. Crocevia delle civilta, Torino, Musei Reali (Sala Chiablese), 29 June 2021-9 Jan 2022, and co-wrote with her the catalogue chapter on the formation of the historical Cypriot collections in Turin.
- 2024Published From Exploration to Exploitation. Giovanni Mariti, Domenico Sestini, Antonio Mondaini and the Early History of Cypriote Archaeology (Studi ciprioti 3, Edizioni Ca' Foscari), on three late-18th-century Italian travellers/'pseudoarchaeologists' and the origins of European interest in Cypriot antiquities.
VeniceBombardieri 2024
Connections
15 peopleScholarship
- Wrote with Anna Margherita Jasink2009–2011
- Wrote with Caterina Scirè Calabrisotto2011
- Wrote with Erika Albertini2011
- Wrote with Francesca Chelazzi2011–2016
- Wrote with G. Tucci2011
- Wrote with A. Borghi2016
- Wrote with F. Turco2016
- Wrote with L. Operti2016
- Wrote with P. Davit2016
- Wrote with Elisa Panero2021
- Wrote with Andrea Villani2023
- Wrote with Marialucia Amadio2023
Colleagues & contacts
- Worked with Anna Margherita Jasinkprobably2007
- Connected with Giovanni Mariti2013–2024
- Worked with Marialucia Amadio2018
- Connected with Antonio Mondaini2021–2024
- Connected with Domenico Sestini2024
On Ancient Cyprus
3 pagesSources
- 1.Luca Bombardieri (2024). From Exploration to Exploitation. Giovanni Mariti, Domenico Sestini, Antonio Mondaini, and the Early History of Cypriote Archaeology. Venice, Edizioni Ca' Foscari. Online
- 2.Michael Given (2025). “Over the landscape, in the landscape? Knowledge and agency in Cypriot archaeology, 1870-1910”. Empire & Excavation: Critical perspectives on archaeology in British-period Cyprus, 1878-1960. Leiden, Sidestone Press.
- 3.L. Bombardieri, E. Panero (2022). “A glance at an exhibition. Cipro. Crocevia delle Civiltà. Torino, Musei Reali (June 2021-January 2022)”. 33-.
- 4.L. Bombardieri, D. Fossataro, D. Menozzi, A. M. Jasink (2009). “The Kouris Valley Survey Project: 2008 Preliminary Report”. RDAC, 117-129.
- 5.L. Bombardieri (2012). “Detecting a Sequence: Stratigraphy and Chronology of the Workshop Complex at Erimi-Laonin tou Porakou”. Cyprus: an Island Culture, 48-64. Oxford.
- 6.L. Bombardieri (ed.) (2017). Erimi Laonin tou Porakou. A Middle Bronze Age Community in Cyprus. Excavations 2008-2014. Uppsala, Astrom Editions.
- 7.L. Bombardieri (2010). Pietre da macina, macine per mulini. Sviluppo e definizione delle tecniche molitorie nell'area del Vicino Oriente e del bacino mediterraneo orientale antico. Oxford, Archaeopress.
- 8.L. Bombardieri (2011). “Il collezionismo di antichità egee e cipriote fra XVIII e XX secolo: storia, caratteri e formazione delle raccolte archeologiche toscane”. Ricerche ed esperienze di Museologia Interattiva, 23-41. Firenze University Press.
- 9.L. Bombardieri (2015). Orgoglio e Pregiudizi. L'archeologia cipriota di Luigi Palma di Cesnola alla luce dei documenti e delle corrispondenze con l'Italia. Rome, Artemide.
- 10.L. Bombardieri (2017). “A Possible Cypriot Origin for an Assyrian Stone Mixing Bowl in the Cesnola Collection”. The Metropolitan Museum Journal 52, 24-33.
- 11.L. Bombardieri (2018). “Vanity Affairs. Two Collectors of Cypriot and Aegean Antiquities Examined”. Journal of the History of Collections 30, 127-138. Online
- 12.L. Bombardieri (2019). “'Ed era io stesso presente'. Giovanni Mariti fra Cipro e l'Italia: una scoperta a Larnaca ed una donazione all'Accademia Etrusca di Cortona (1767-1776)”. BABESCH 94, 235-246.
- 13.L. Bombardieri (2020). “The Necropoli a mare reloaded. Fifty years after the Italian archaeological project at Late Bronze Age Ayia Irini, Cyprus”. Annuario della Scuola archeologica di Atene e delle missioni italiane in Oriente 98, 60-71.
- 14.L. Bombardieri (ed.), E. Panero (ed.) (2021). Cipro. Crocevia delle civiltà. Catalogo della mostra, Torino, Musei Reali - Sala Chiablese, 29 giugno 2021-9 gennaio 2022. Turin and Rome, Musei Reali / De Angelis Art.