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has shown that peasant communities in the the 5th century increased
consumption of fine red-slipped table wares and changed in their
domestic architecture in an effort to negotiate their relationship with
Roman landowners in the the region. Scholars have also recognized
the subtle variation of architectural forms associated with early
Christian ritual as a way for groups to represent their relationship to
the institutional authority of the church.
The use of material culture to understand the relationships
between groups or how communities or even individuals represented
themselves is difficult. It asks us as archaeologists to make the leap
from objects to critical consideration of the past practices (both
archaeological and historical) that created the archaeological record.
Ill avoid the term communities of practice or Pierre Bourdieus
habitus for today, as unnecessary theorizing in the face of some
complicated archaeological evidence, but these concepts do serve to
articulate the gap between practices (or at least evidence for practices)
and underlying the social relationships that constitute communities.
In an archaeological context, linking practice to culture is always
messy and problematic, so the arguments in this paper will be messy
and, at times, seem to beg for alternate interpretations. I trust my
friendly hosts tonight will nevertheless see the value in this
exploration and perhaps even help me clarify my understanding of
Late Roman Cypriot society.
stages.
[SLIDE8] At the same time that we worked to organize the
excavation notebooks and plans, we set about studying the context
pottery from the excavations. During the excavations, trench
supervisors and specialists identified and recorded separately highly
diagnostic pottery and other individually significant artifacts (coins,
lamps, architectural fragments, et c.). The remaining pottery was
quickly documented, undiagnostic sherds discarded, and a
representative sample kept for future study. This sample included
most feature sherds, rims, handles, bases, and some examples of
distinct fabrics. These artifacts had not been studied systematically
for the area around the South Basilica and in 2010, R. Scott Moore
and myself used our reconstruction of the sites stratigraphy as the
basis for the study the context pottery. Over the past three years, we
have documented over 20,000 artifacts from the excavations and
created a database that integrates these artifacts with the stratigraphy
and the existing inventoried finds. This database provides the basic
structure for my study today.
Id like to start with the Early Christian basilica at the site.
[SLIDE10]
The South Basilica at Polis-Chrysochous is merely one of over 100
below the foundations of the nave and aisle walls are the inelegantlynamed Cypriot Red Slip forms 9B, 11, and 2. These types tend to
date to the second half of the 6th century. The appearance of later
6th century material in lower fills near the south nave and aisle walls
provides a terminus post quem. In other words, we can probably date
the first phase of the church to the later 6th century. As I will argue
in just a minute, the second phase of the church dates to the first half
of the 7th century and this provides a terminus ante quem for the
buildings initial construction.
[SLIDE15] With the second phase of the building, things get more
interesting both in terms of the architecture and the archaeology. The
church received a western narthex and a long portico that ran along
its south side. The narthex and the south portico both featured a
series of arched openings, and they joined in a room at the
southwestern corner of the church. In addition, the central nave gains
some significant structural reinforcements at this time. A series of
five buttresses were set against both sides of the north and south
walls of the church. It is interesting to note that the north and south
aisle walls did not appear to receive any reinforcement. It seems
likely, then, that the these buttresses supported a series of arches for
a vaulted roof over the central nave. The original nave walls were
relatively thin indicating that they probably supported a wood roof,
and we can expect that the aisles, which would have stood lower and
than the main nave, probably kept their wooded, shed roofs even in
the second phase.
The way we dated this phase was pretty exciting (from an
archaeological perspective). It involved a careful study of both the
architecture and the ceramics found in trenches associated with the
modifications to the building. [SLIDE16] The most dramatic feature
that we have associated with the second phase of the South Basilica is
a vast leveling course of cobble sized stones and rubble along the
south wall of the church. While Ill return to discussing this feature
later, it is important to understand that there was no foundation cut
visible in this level for the south aisle wall. In other words, the south
aisle wall predated this rubble fill which became the foundation for
the south portico. [SLIDE17] The south portico, in turn, is
contemporary with the narthex, and these two features are
structurally and architecturally dependent upon one another.
Moreover, excavation along the west wall of the narthex and in the
large cobble and rubble fill near the south aisle and under the south
portico produced a very similar assemblage of pottery. [SLIDE18]
Both trenches produced Cypriot Red Slip shapes called well forms
after their discovery in a sealed well deposit at Anemurium in Cilicia
dating to around 630. Moreover the trenches included the usual array
of other contemporary and earlier Cypriot Red Slip forms including
1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11. Coins in the cobble and rubble fill include a
coin of Maurice (582-602) and reinforce the 7th century date for the
south portico and narthex.
This is where things get really cool (you know, for an
archaeologist). [SLIDE19] In 1995, the Polis project excavated the
foundation cut associated with the construction of one of the
buttresses along the north wall of the nave. This excavation produced
a small assemblage of Cypriot Red Slip pottery including a base with
a stamped cross. [SLIDE20] This piece of pottery joined with a base
found in the cobble and rubble level under the south portico making
the deposit of these two sherds almost certainly contemporary. This
allows us to link the construction of the narthex, south portico, and
the nave buttresses to a single phase of construction. Several other
deposits from the north aisle and from the vicinity of a pair of rooms
to the southeast of the basilica confirm a 7th century date for
significant building activity at the church.
The transformation of the church from a wood-roofed to barrelvaulted basilica places this building in a small group of churches on
Cyprus that underwent this transformation. Based on the evidence
from excavation, it appears that our church at Polis is the earliest
(and perhaps only) datable church representing this phenomenon.
[SLIDE21] It is worth noting, however, that this building stood
outside of the traditional group of early vaulted basilicas on the
between the Amathus acropolis church and the South Basilica might
relate the formers status as a pilgrimage church. The visibility of this
monument on the island likely made it an appealing target for
imitation and perhaps connected the activities of a saint or some
aspect of that saints veneration at Polis and Amathus.
[SLIDE25] It is appealing to speculate on the relationship between
the second phase of the South Basilica at Polis and the events that
took place just north at the site of Soloi. According to a dated
inscription, the basilica was destroyed during Arab raids of 649 and
subsequently repaired. Perhaps the the rebuilding of the Polis church
was contemporary with the repairs to the Soloi basilica which
involved a repaired roof but without a change to the basic structure.
If we link the rebuilding of churches on the Karpas to Arab raids in
that region and the tendency of wood-roofed churches to burn easily,
and it is tempting to see the repairs at Polis as part of the larger
response to a particular threat. Moreover, a recently published body
of inscriptions from Polis indicate that the site remained closely
linked to the capital at Constantinople and urban centers in Anatolia
into the 8th century.
[SLIDE26/27/28] If the architectural history of Polis conjured
architecture through connections with Soloi, its southern neighbor at
Peyia, as well as the far northeastern corners of Cyprus, and the
central coast, the ceramic evidence from Polis tells a slightly broader
story. The substantial rubble and cobble level associated with the
second phase of the basilica produced a massive assemblage of
Roman and Late Roman period pottery. Archaeologists refer to
assemblages found in fills as residual or in secondary context. This
assemblage of pottery, then, does not reflect activities associated with
the intended use of the ceramic vessels, but rather discard practices
that likely brought together material from a wide range of areas
across the site and dumped it together to produce the rubble fill. This
residual assemblage, then, represents a wide range of activities up
until the point when it dumped into the leveling fill of the south
portico and atrium.
[SLIDE29] This residual assemblage produced over 3000 sherds
of pottery and a substantial amount of diagnostic material. Historical
periods from the Iron Age to the Late Roman are represented in this
residual assemblage, but nearly 80% (or 2000 sherds) of the
diagnostic material dates to the Roman or Late Roman period. Sherds
dating to the Late Roman period (4th-7th century AD) make up nearly
half the Roman assemblage and provides us with a substantial crosssection of functions ranging from trade to domestic life at Polis.
[SLIDE30] The most substantial (and perhaps most interesting)
group of material in the fill were fine wares, which accounted for
match (Williams 1992). Form 7 and 8 tend to feature flat rims with
multiple grooves, but they do not appear with as much variation as
this form does elsewhere on the island. Form 7, 8, and 11 are the
largest vessels in CRS fabric and some scholars have suggested that
large vessels tend to travel less distance from their production sites,
and the relatively utilitarian character of these larger basins might
make this even more the case. So, the large quantity of this material
at Polis might hint at the presence of a production site in the far west
of the island.
[SLIDE33] We can add a little more to this argument: The Form
11 with the heavy, folded, rim does not appear among the types
associated with the kilns recently published in Pamphylia in Asia
Minor, and the Polis Form 7s and 8s do not appear to have obvious
parallels with those same forms at the Pamphylian kilns. The
frequency of Form 8 and Form 11 in our assemblage, does suggest
that our site is rather late in the CRS production history, and the
latest material in the residual fill is more or less contemporary with
Pamphylian kiln. Both the kiln and the fill from the rooms southeast
of the basilica also produced examples of "well form" CRS which
were produced as late as the first half of the 7th century.
[SLIDE34] When we consider the Polis assemblage in the context
of the island, more curious variation appears. In the nearby
modern city of Larnaka which was the ancient city of Kition. Our
work documented a thriving coastal community of Late Roman date
stretching along a kilometer of the south Cyprus coastline. The site
benefited from a now infilled embayment that likely served as a
harbor in antiquity and had at least one well-appointed Early
Christian basilica as well as a built up semi-urban area. It is possible
that John Moschos referred to the site as an emporion (or market
town) named Tadai is his Spiritual Meadow. My work at this site was
done with my colleagues David Pettegrew and R. Scott Moore and it
produced a robust assemblage of both local and imported Late
Roman ceramics.
[SLIDE] The Late Roman assemblage from the site consisted of a
large number of transport amphora sherds (32%) most of which are
from Late Roman 1 amphoras which were either produced on the
island or on the Cilician coast of Asia Minor. This shear quantity of
these sherds from our site suggests that it may have functioned as a
transshipment point for local agricultural produce from the area and
the remains of an press weight, crusher stone, and settling basin for
an olive press indicates that some agricultural processing took place
at the site (even if these objects did not derive from the same
installation).
This presence of fine ware provides a more useful source for
and ceramic fine ware is only scratching the surface, but it does
represent two opportunities for display at the public and private level
respectively.
[SLIDE48] This differences between the contemporary
assemblages at Pyla-Koutsopetria and Polis reflect the complexity of
local economic realities and taste. Separated by less 100 miles as the
crow flies and 150 miles by sea, the sites are basically similar. Both
have basilica style churches, robust assemblages of fine table wares
and transport vessels, and developed urban infrastructures. The
artifact assemblages, as we have seen, differ significantly.
The differences fit into a general pattern. CRS appeared
predominantly in coastal communities and particularly in the
southwestern corner of the island. The abundance of CRS along the
coast indicated that is was plentiful and affordable to these
communities at least in comparison to its imported rival fine wares
produced in either North Africa (ARS) or Asia Minor (LCR). Here
Im making the safe assumption that if inland communities had
access to LRC and ARS so did the coastal communities through
which this imported pottery moved. When CRS, ARS, and LRC
reached inland communities, however, something changed. Perhaps it
was the cost of transporting CRS the short trip from the coast to the
sites 10-15 km inland increased its price enough to make its
Architecture)and)Assemblage)at)the)
site)of)Polis5Chrysochous)on)Cyprus)
William)R.)Caraher,)University)of)North)Dakota)
Paphos)image)
R.)Maguire,)Late)An0que)Basilicas)on)Cyprus:)
sources,)contexts,)history.)
)(Unpub.)Ph.d.)Diss.)East)Anglia)2012))
Fig.)1.1))
)C.)A.)Stewart,)The)First)Vaulted)Churches)in)Cyprus))
Journal)of)the)Society)of)Architectural)Historians)69)(2010))
Fig.)1)
)C.)A.)Stewart,)The)First)
Vaulted)Churches)in)Cyprus))
Journal)of)the)Society)of)
Architectural)Historians)69)
(2010))Fig.)1)
R.)Maguire,)Late)An0que)
Basilicas)on)Cyprus:)
sources,)contexts,)history.)
)(Unpub.)Ph.d.)Diss.)East)
Anglia)2012))
Fig.)6.1,)6.2)
)C.)A.)Stewart,)The)First)
Vaulted)Churches)in)Cyprus))
Journal)of)the)Society)of)
Architectural)Historians)69)
(2010))
Fig.)6)and)7)
From)Anemurium)
CRS)Kilns)(Gebiz))
Anemurium)
Polis)
CPSP)
PKAP)
Kalavasos5Kopetra)
Maroni5Petrera)
Cypriot)Red)Slip)from)Polis)
Cypriot)Red)Slip)from)Polis)