Last week, I posted a draft of the first of two proposal drafts for the Polis project on Cyprus. Here is the second one. We have a rather ambitious plan to get these two volumes submitted over the next two years. This might seem a bit unrealistic, but volume one is almost done and we have completed some of the ground work for volume two.
This week, we’re switching our attention to volume two.
1. Editors
Nancy Serwint, R. Scott Moore, and Tina Najbjerg
With contributions by William Caraher, Peter Cosyns, and Amy Papalexandrou
2. Title
Polis: City of Work
3. Description of the Book
This book publishes several industrial areas associated with the northern side of the city of ancient Arsinoe and excavated by the Princeton Cyprus Expedition. Referred to as E.F2 in the Princeton grid or Petrerades, these areas produced a series of industrial installations largely dating to the Hellenistic and Roman periods (Njabjerg 2012). These installations appear to stand on either side of a north-south drainage that ran to the north down the slope that formed the northern border of the city. This location utilized this difficult topography for industrial activities which also located these workshops away from the city center. While the drainage and sloping ground required water management, it also provided access to water necessary to levigate clay, to quench glass and metal (see Parani 2013 for a summary), and to as a solution for dyes and pigments. Of particular significance is a corpus of Roman lamps that appear to represent the output of the kiln excavated in this area. The area contained workshops that seem to have been involved in metallurgy, glass processing, and the production of terracotta figures. This volume documents these industrial areas, their products, and situates them in the urban landscape of Hellenistic and Roman Arsinoe.
4. Table of Contents/Outline
I. Introduction
II. The Kiln
1. Situation.
2. Features
A. The Kiln
B. The Levigation Pool.
C. Later Features.
D. Adjacent Structures.
3. Stratigraphy and Chronology
4 Conclusion
III. The Southwest Workshops
1. Situation.
2. Features.
3. Stratigraphy and Chronology.
4. Conclusion
IV. Tools and Implements
V. Lamps from EF2
1. Lamps from the area of the kiln.
2. Lamps from elsewhere in E.F2.
VI. The Productive Landscape of the Chrysochous Valley in the Hellenistic and Roman period.
VII. Conclusion
5. Audience/Market
This book seeks to balance an in-depth study of industrial implements and sites with the careful documentation of the stratigraphy and chronology of these area. The former will be of interest to scholars of production on Cyprus and in the broader Eastern Mediterranean where thoroughly published production sites remain rare despite their acknowledged significance. The latter will continue efforts to produce a comprehensive publication of the Princeton excavations at Polis
6. Prompting Need
This volume is the second in the Polis series and continues our efforts to publish meaningful assemblages, features, contexts, and analysis from the Princeton Cyprus Expedition. The material at the center of this volume both reflects a growing interest in production in the ancient world and represents a move to complement the view of Arsinoe celebrated in the 2012 City of Gold volume that accompanied the exhibit of that name at Princeton university with a volume dedicated to production and work in the city (Childs 2012).
7. Key Features/Benefits
This volume will include a detailed descriptions of features and architecture as well as stratigraphic relationships and associated contexts. It will also provide a catalogue of key finds associated with production in the area and a catalogue of the assemblage of lamps which we have tentatively associating with the kiln (see Njabjerg 2012).
8. Location/Competition
Scholars have long seen Cyprus as a locus of production. Well-known work has celebrate the islands role as a site of copper mining and metallurgy (Knapp and Keswani 2005), ceramics and terracotta figures (Lund 2015), textiles (Smith 2002; Smith and Tzachili 2012), sugar (von Wartburg 2001; Given 2018), and even cheese (Laoutari 2020). Western Cyprus is particularly prominent in this scholarship with archaeologists recognizing the larger Paphos district as an important center of copper production from the Bronze Age through to the later periods (e.g. Kassanidou 2023; for Polis see Raber 1987; Sdralia et al. 2023). In the Roman period, the Western part of the island appears to have been the place of origin for Cypriot Red Slip and Cypriot Sigillata fine ware (Gomez et al. 1996, 2002). This volume will contribute to this ongoing conversation and expand our understanding of known production sites on Cyprus. Moreover, this volume will pay particular attention to the relationship of production to the urban center and urban change as well as the stratigraphy associated with the site.
9. Prior Publication
Some publications associated with production at Polis have appeared over the last four decades. Notable are publications on the production of terracotta figures (see Serwint 2023) and textiles (Baker et al. 2012; ; as well as mentions of agricultural production and even the local manufacture of steatite and picrolite pectoral crosses (Papalexandrou 2016). Despite this consistent awareness of production at Polis, there is no single volume that considers this evidence in its stratigraphic and spatial context at the site.
Archaeology of the Mediterranean World 