Sarandis Symeonoglou

Sarandis Symeonoglou (also printed Sarantis) directed the fieldwork of the Columbia University expedition to Phlamoudhi in the Kyrenia district. In the first season, 10 August to 6 September 1970, he and Edith Porada are recorded as leading the dig on Vounarin hill^7,14. From 1971 the annual reports name Porada as head of the expedition and him as director of the excavation in the field^8,9,10. Joanna Smith and her co-authors describe him as an older student of Porada's who was finishing a thesis on his excavations at Thebes, supervising Cypriot village workmen and Columbia students⁵. His book Kadmeia I appeared in 1973³.

While the team cleared the stone pile at Vounari he began a survey of the district. His own count was eleven large settlement sites, ten smaller installations, four possible sanctuaries and ten cemeteries, with trial trenches at Sapilou and at Melissa, where he found Late Cypriot I architecture². In summer 1971 he left Vounari to Selma Al-Radi and Sam Paley while he turned to the survey and Melissa⁵.

He first took the Vounari building, at most 60 by 60 feet and dated by its pottery to about 1700 to 1400 BC, for a fortified settlement. In 1975 he argued it was a sanctuary, comparing Vounous, though he allowed that no single object proved it². The notes, photographs and most of the pottery went to Columbia⁶.