Review of "The Bronze Age Cemeteries at Karmi Palealona and Lapatsa in Cyprus: Excavations by J. R. B. Stewart," SIMA 136 by Jennifer M. Webb, David Frankel, et al. in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 2011, 363: 99-101. (original) (raw)
Related papers
Religions 12(10), 2021
The aim of the paper is to discuss mortuary contexts and possible related ritual features as parts of sacred landscapes in Late Bronze Age Cyprus. Since the island was an important node in the Eastern Mediterranean economic network, it will be explored whether and how connectivity and insularity may be reflected in ritual and mortuary practices. The article concentrates on the extra-urban cemetery of Area A at the harbour city of Hala Sultan Tekke, where numerous pits and other shafts with peculiar deposits of complete and broken objects as well as faunal remains have been found. These will be evaluated and set in relation to the contexts of the nearby tombs to reconstruct ritual activities in connection with funerals and possible rituals of commemoration or ancestral rites. The evidence from Hala Sultan Tekke and other selected Late Cypriot sites demonstrates that these practices were highly dynamic in integrating and adopting external objects, symbols, and concepts, while, nevertheless, definite island-specific characteristics remain visible.
An Elite Tomb from Soloi: New Evidence for the Funerary Archaeology of Cyprus
ADALYA, 2020
This article focuses on a 4th century BC tomb from the necropolis of Soloi, an important ancient city in northwestern Cyprus. The tomb, together with five others, were revealed during a rescue excavation between 2005-2006. They supply us with evidence related to the Cypro- Classical period of Soloi. The specific tomb that will be evaluated is distinguished from its contemporaries, especially by its rich inventory of gold and silver jewelry and metal vessels. The tomb is characterized by three separate burial chambers that open to a rock-cut central courtyard (prodomos). It supplies us with valuable information related to the sociocultural structure, internal and external relations of Cypro- Classical Soloi as well as funerary beliefs and customs of its elite. The article firstly gives a detailed structural and comparative analysis conducted to reveal both the spatial and architectural characteristics of the tomb. This will be followed by a superficial, yet still informative, analysis of all the burials and their rich inventories. Last but not least, the burials and their inventories will be contextualized within the setting of the 4th century BC Cypriot and Greek burial customs.
City and Cemetery: Excavations at Kourion's Amathous Gate Cemetery, Cyprus: The Excavations of Danielle A. Parks. Volume 2: Human Skeletal Remains, Ecofacts, and Artifacts, 2024
The Amathous Gate Cemetery played a key role in the spatial and social organization of the well-preserved city of Kourion on the south coast of Cyprus. It saw major transformations between the Hellenistic and Byzantine periods, from massively destructive earthquakes and the rise of Christianity to new social and administrative structures. The excavations were directed by the late Danielle A. Parks from 1995 to 2000, and found striking evidence for burial and commemoration, a wide range of material culture, and a large assemblage of well-preserved human remains. The project uses an innovative methodology for analyzing mixed stratigraphy and legacy data, which we offer to those researching sites with similar challenges. This volume presents detailed descriptions and interpretations of the ecofacts and artifacts. These include human and animal bone, pottery, lamps, figurines, stone objects, painted plaster, glass, jewelry, coins, and loom weights. Scientific methods include isotopic analysis of the bones, Neutron Activation Analysis of the pottery, and spectroscopic analysis of the glass.
At the end of the Middle Bronze Age in Cyprus there was a change from the EC and MC extramural cemeteries to the intramural tombs located within the protourban centres. The foundation of intramural tombs is clearly connected to social and economic evolution favoured by both the increase in demand for copper abroad and the Cypriot participation in international trade (Keswani 2004, pp. 84-86). The placement of tombs within the settlements might have been favoured by the heterogeneous origin of people who converged into the new towns from the outlying regions. Therefore these tombs " served as important symbols of group identity and of rights transmitted through descent over generations, and sometimes centuries of reuse " (Keswani 2004, p. 158). Although Enkomi was not the largest LC town, it is regarded as the most important centre in view of its regular planning and of the rich tombs founded in the residential area. It was supposed that originally there were about a thousand tombs, but only about 200 of them have been excavated by official missions. About one half of the tombs were discovered by the British Museum expedition (1896), but basic information is lacking and only a part of the finds has been published (Keswani 1989, p. 52). Accounts of the 28 tombs found by the Swedish Cyprus Expedition (1930) and of the 30 tombs excavated by the Cypriot mission (1948-1955) are sufficiently detailed (Gjerstad et alii 1934; Dikaios 1969-1971), and reports of most of the 37 tombs discovered by French archaeologists (1934-1972) are helpful although a few of them are only known through a list of finds. The necropolis of Enkomi was used from the MC III/LC I transition to the end of LC III, i.e. from the 16 th century B.C. to the middle of the 11 th century B.C. Chamber tombs, " tholos " tombs, ashlar tombs, shaft graves, and pot graves have been found (Keswani 1989, pp. 52-56), but there is no precise correspondence between tomb typology and richness of burials, and rich tombs are located everywhere in the town (Keswani 1989, pp. 53, 69, 73-74, no. 35; van Wijngaarden 2002, p. 151, no. 78). Preliminary results of a more comprehensive study on functional analysis of their contents are here presented. In spite of the limits of the available evidence, it has been chosen to select the contents of the tombs excavated by the French missions. They constitute the most conspicuous group of published burial assemblages and are representative of the entire period of use of the necropolis as well as of all the tomb typologies. Moreover they are located in all the areas of the town so far explored.