Michael Katzev

Michael Lazare Katzev directed the excavation of the Kyrenia ship, a wreck off the north coast of Cyprus whose hull was raised in 1968 and 1969 and rebuilt in the castle at Kyrenia. He was born in Los Angeles on 25 July 1939¹. He took a degree in economics at Stanford in 1961 and an M.A. in art history at Berkeley in 1963, and in 1964 he worked at Yassiada in Turkey, where he met Susan Womer. They married in 1966. He then became a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania under George F. Bass¹.

Searching the coast

In 1967 Bass was invited to survey Cypriot waters and recommended that Katzev direct the work instead². The Cyprus Underwater Archaeological Search worked that autumn along the Akamas, the Paphos coast, Cape Greco and Cape Andreas, with Susan Womer Katzev, J. Richard Green and E. T. Hall in the team^2,6. Late in the season the team was taken to a wreck off Kyrenia. Bass writes that Andreas Cariolou, who had found the wreck in 1965, showed the Katzevs its amphoras¹. Harpster gives a different account: the team learned of the site from a member of the audience at a lecture Katzev gave in Nicosia².

Two seasons at Kyrenia

The University of Pennsylvania Museum sponsored the excavation, and Katzev led it^4,9. The first season ran from 14 June to 18 August 1968. The team used stereophotogrammetry to record the site and raised 307 amphoras, whole or in pieces, about two thirds of the cargo; hopper mills and lead sheathing from the hull were also found^3,4. Katzev was an assistant professor of art history and archaeology at Oberlin College in these years¹.

In 1969, with Dr David Owen assisting, the hull was exposed completely. Another 73 amphoras brought the total to 400, though the Bulletin de correspondance hellénique counts 403, and 22 or more hopper mill blocks were lifted^5,8. Among the other finds were more than 5,000 almonds, a lead seal impression of Athena Promachos and coins of Antigonos and Demetrios⁸. The hull timbers were taken to Kyrenia Castle for conservation⁵.

The castle and the replica

The Cyprus government converted galleries in Kyrenia Castle for the ship, and from 1970 the timbers were treated with polyethylene glycol. J. Richard Steffy and Robin C. M. Piercy completed the reassembly of the hull in 1975². The finds stayed in the castle, which now stands in the occupied north².

In 1973 Katzev was a founder and first vice president of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology. With Susan Katzev he persuaded Bass to base it on Cyprus, and its first project was the completion of the hull reconstruction¹. The events of 1974 ended that plan. The Katzevs moved to Athens for six years of research on the ship and returned to the United States in 1982^1,2. Bass records that Katzev also directed an INA survey of a Hellenistic shipwreck off Lipari in 1976¹.

From 1982 to 1985 Katzev supervised the building of Kyrenia II, a full-scale replica, at a yard in Piraeus; it sailed from Piraeus to Paphos in 1986². Bass writes that Katzev, using techniques for replicating iron concretions that had been developed at Yassiada, deduced that the ship had been attacked by pirates¹.

Katzev died of a stroke at his home in Southport, Maine, on 8 September 2001. The multi-authored final publication of the Kyrenia ship was then about two years from going to press, according to Bass, and Susan Katzev has led it since^1,2.