Ormideia

Ormideia (Ormidhia) is a village on the south-east coast of Cyprus, about 20 km east of Larnaca (ancient Kition) and about 30 km south-west of Famagusta, on the boundary between the two districts [1, p. 53]. Tombs found in and around it run from the Cypro-Geometric II period to the Late Roman period, and the main settlement and cemetery of the Iron Age probably lie under the centre of the modern village [1, pp. 55–56]. The name is best known from museum labels. In the 1870s Luigi Palma di Cesnola and his brother Alessandro kept a summer house here, and many pieces of the Cesnola Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art are said to come from Ormidhia. The recorded evidence is smaller and more secure: a sanctuary dug by Max Ohnefalsch-Richter in 1882, and the tombs and rescue excavations of the Department of Antiquities, brought together by Maria Hadjicosti, the Department's archaeologist for the district [1].

The village and its setting

The village lies in a narrow valley about 3 km long, between two ranges of low hills and two plateaus that run parallel to the sea. An opening to the sea about 300 m long and 500 m wide is marshy today and was a source of malaria in the past; Hadjicosti suggests it "was perhaps a land-locked harbour in antiquity" [1, p. 53]. The name probably comes from the Greek órmos, a bay or anchorage, after the small bays of the rocky shore south of the village [1, p. 53]. A medieval settlement has been located at Meridji, beside the small fishing harbour, and the seabed off the coast has given up "Canaanite"-type amphorae and fragments of imported Greek amphorae and other pottery [1, p. 53].

Together with its neighbour Xylotymbou, Ormideia forms an enclave inside the British Sovereign Base Area of Dhekelia, and its village lands come under the jurisdiction of the Base [1, p. 53]. The Late Bronze Age tombs at Dhekelia lie a few kilometres to the west, on the shore of Larnaca Bay.

The old village stood north of the marshy corridor on a low hill that the villagers call Pithkiavli, between the church of Agios Konstantinos and the elementary school. Hadjicosti identified it as "the area of an ancient settlement dating from the late Cypro-Geometric to the late Roman period" [1, pp. 53, 57 n. 4].

Phases of the site

Phases

1. Cypro-Geometric II–IIIc. 950–750 BC

   The earliest material in the area: two tombs at Louri on the northern slopes.

2. Cypro-Archaic I–IIc. 750–480 BC

   Tombs at Konizero, Koutsopetri, Chalitiki Gi, Vattena and in the village centre; the sanctuary dug in 1882; most of the pieces attributed to Ormidhia.

3. Hellenistic and Romanc. 310 BC–AD 330

   Tombs at Ambeli and a public building of large limestone blocks at Lakkos Glykys.

4. Late Roman and Early Christianc. AD 330–650

   A rich tomb, settlement remains and an olive press at Agios Georgios Angonas.

Cesnola's summer house

In the 19th century Ormideia was a summer retreat for the foreign community of Larnaca, partly because the Vondiziano (Vontizianos) family lived there [1, p. 54]. Luigi Palma di Cesnola, then American consul, says he first came in the spring of 1872 and from 1873 made "a pretty little white cottage on the summit of a low hill near the outskirts of the village" his summer resort for as long as he stayed on the island [1, p. 54; 2, p. 179]. The house belonged to Nicolaos Vondiziano, a merchant, nephew and heir of a Cephalonian nobleman who had come to Cyprus in 1755 [1, p. 57]. Nicholas Stanley-Price describes it as "a stout building in stone and mudbrick of two floors, with a large internal courtyard and garden" [3, p. 304]. The cadastral survey of 1922 marks it as "Cesnola's Summer Residence"; villagers still call the spot Tsifliki and Kousoulato ("the Consulate"), and the house was demolished around 1970 [1, pp. 56–57; 3, p. 304].

Alessandro took over the lease when his brother left [3, p. 304]. In 1876 he used the house as a base to explore the Ormideia and Xylotymbou area, and in 1877 the Karpas [1, p. 54]. The village priest, Papa Petro, is the only person Luigi illustrated in his book: he thought the priest's conical cap resembled the caps of the limestone statues from Golgoi. Older villagers remembered that the priest handed out the flour and wheat with which Cesnola rewarded people who brought him antiquities [1, p. 57].

The house also played a part in the first prosecution for illicit excavation under British rule. On 2 October 1878 Achilleus Vondiziano, Nicolaos's eldest son, told a police captain that Alessandro had been digging at Enkomi a fortnight earlier, after the new ban on excavation, and that he had tried to persuade the workmen to stop. Villagers of Ormidia told a zaptieh that the work was still going on. The reports led to Alessandro's arrest, trial and conviction [3, pp. 297, 304].

"Said to be from Ormidhia": the Cesnola material

Luigi Palma di Cesnola wrote that "in the centre of a triangle formed by the villages of Ormidia, Timbo, and Afgoro" (Ormideia, Xylotymbou and Avgorou) he found "a very extensive burying-ground, which yielded the largest and most highly decorated vases found in Cyprus", explored in 1870–71 and 1875 without any trace of temples or houses [1, p. 54; 2, p. 181]. As far as we know, no tomb groups have been recorded in the centre of that triangle. All the known burial grounds lie in the valley or on the slopes round Pithkiavli, nearer the sea, and two places close to the house, Limni and Tsifli, are entered in the Cyprus Survey fieldbooks as Geometric cemeteries [1, p. 54].

The finest of the pieces attributed to Ormidhia date to Cypro-Geometric III and Cypro-Archaic I. Cesnola's Atlas records the terracottas as coming from tombs: bearded men holding animals, tambourine players, women with uplifted arms, shield-bearing warriors, horses and riders, a man riding a donkey and two figures holding or wearing masks [1, pp. 54–55; 4]. The pottery includes large amphorae with geometric or floral necks and shoulders, stemmed bowls, jugs painted with birds, fish, animals and a boat, and amphoriskoi with floral motifs [1, p. 55]. Hadjicosti saw in them "the best examples of the production characteristic of the eastern part of the island", among them an amphora with a bird eating a fish, a typical design of the east [1, p. 55].

The best known is the "Ormidhia vase", a Bichrome IV amphora that J. L. Myres dated to the early 6th century BC. Its lower part is lost; the figured zone shows dancers holding staffs and two facing thrones. Georges Perrot had published a drawing of it as one of the most precious relics of Cypriot art, but Myres noted that "nothing is recorded as to the precise source and associations of this vase" [5, pp. 39–40]. Hadjicosti compares its two enthroned female figures with those on the Hubbard amphora [1, p. 55].

Erin Walcek Averett counts Ormidhia among the Iron Age findplaces of masking imagery in Cyprus, with Amathus, Golgoi, Kourion, Salamis and others [6, p. 24]. She lists two pieces from here, both from unspecified tombs: a man holding a mask (Met 74.51.1608) and a man wearing a bull mask (Met 74.51.1619), Cypro-Archaic [6, pp. 11, 37; 7]. A third piece said to come from a tomb at Ormidhia is a handmade terracotta figurine of the "goddess with uplifted arms" type, wearing a high flat tiara, of Cypro-Archaic II (Met 74.51.1615) [7].

• Terracotta statuette of a male figure holding the head and neck of a mask or imageArchaic I · 750–600 BCMetropolitan Museum of Art
• Standing female figurine of the "goddess with uplifted arms" typeArchaic II · 600–480 BCMetropolitan Museum of Art
• Terracotta jugArchaic I · 750–600 BCMetropolitan Museum of Art

The label is not always reliable. The amphoriskoi have close parallels at Idalion, some on the same plates of the Atlas, and the Swedish expedition found similar vessels stratified on the Ampileri hill there. Hadjicosti concluded that "most probably, the Ormideia finds in the Cesnola collection were mixed up with material from Idalion" [1, p. 55]. A piece said to be from Ormidhia may come from the village, from elsewhere in the district, or from further afield.

Ohnefalsch-Richter's sanctuary, 1882

The only sanctuary dug at Ormideia was excavated by Max Ohnefalsch-Richter in 1882 for Sir Charles Newton of the British Museum. The catalogue of the Cyprus Museum records "a sanctuary outside the village", with the finds in the British Museum, "especially a Kriophoros statue", a figure carrying a ram [8, p. 10; 9, p. 12]. Sabine Schmid places it near the sea and notes that the deity worshipped there is unknown [10]. Ohnefalsch-Richter also found figures with uplifted arms, which Hadjicosti takes, with the Cesnola figures of the same type, as evidence for a sanctuary in the area [1, p. 56]. J. L. Myres later wrote of "a small sanctuary and many ancient tombs" recorded here by Ohnefalsch-Richter, of much illicit tomb-digging towards Famagusta, "but no regular excavation" [5, p. 39].

• Peaked Cap Ram VotaryArchaic II · 600–475 BCBritish Museum

In the same year Ohnefalsch-Richter opened two tombs at neighbouring Xylotymbou for Newton. They were "of fine masonry, with gable roof built as a 'false-arch'", and Myres called them "late Graeco-Phoenician", an Archaic date in his terminology [8, p. 12].

Tombs recorded by the Department of Antiquities

The Department's tombs, chance finds and rescue work around the village are registered in the Larnaca District Museum (M LA numbers). None of them lies where Cesnola placed his burying-ground [1, pp. 54–56].

Recorded tomb localities, after Hadjicosti 2001. The Phoenician bowl from Konizero was published in the Bulletin de correspondance hellénique for 1984 [1, pp. 54–56; 11, p. 922]. A barrel jug with concentric circles from Konizero is in the Cyprus Museum [1, p. 55].

The Louri tombs hold the earliest material yet found in the area [1, p. 56]. Hadjicosti's extract from the cadastral plan marks the school hill, where plot 203 lies, as a Geometric-Archaic cemetery, and the site of the Lakkos Glykys building as a Hellenistic-Roman settlement [1, p. 67].

Where the ancient settlement lay

Hadjicosti concluded that "the main Cypro-Geometric and Cypro-Archaic settlement, as well as the main cemetery of Ormideia, most probably lie in the centre of the village". Local builders reported walls, terracotta figurines and tombs during house building, and these reports allowed her to estimate the extent of both [1, p. 56]. The village of Cesnola's day was, in her view, also the centre of his interest.

The only place that more or less matches Cesnola's description is Lacsha tou Solomou, a small valley north-west of the village centre, with no recorded tombs but with surface sherds that suggest a cemetery [1, p. 56]. In 1912 Ieronymos Peristianis collected two inscriptions in the Cypriot syllabary there, later published by Olivier Masson. One is a silver plaque with a stag in relief that names Agathokreon as its maker. Hadjicosti takes the two texts to indicate a settlement or a sanctuary in this locality [1, p. 56; 12; 13, p. 308].

Later history

In the Hellenistic period tombs were cut on the low hill of Ambeli, where Pavlos Flourentzos published one in 1990 [1, pp. 54, 56; 14]. In 1991 Hadjicosti directed a rescue excavation in the yard of a house at Lakkos Glykys and found the remains of a public building of very large hewn limestone blocks, dated by a few sherds to the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The Ambeli tombs, about 500 m to the south, may be its cemetery [1, p. 56].

The latest ancient tomb known is at Agios Georgios Angonas, near the medieval church on the way to Avgorou: a Late Roman to Early Christian burial with 218 registered objects. Remains of a settlement and an olive press are still visible around the church [1, p. 56]. In the Middle Ages the village appears in the chronicle of Leontios Makhairas as Ορμετία, and the churches of Agios Damianos and Agios Konstantinos Alamanos stood on Pithkiavli until the present church replaced them in 1901 [1, pp. 53–54].

Where to see the finds

Nothing ancient is laid out for visitors at Ormideia: the settlement and the main cemetery lie under the modern village. The Department's finds are in the Larnaca District Museum, with one jug in the Cyprus Museum [1, p. 55, p. 57 n. 3]. Ohnefalsch-Richter's finds of 1882 went to the British Museum [8, p. 10]. The pieces attributed to Ormidhia are in the Metropolitan Museum in New York and, in smaller number, the Harvard Semitic Museum.