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| New York University Geronisos Island Excavations
28/08/2006 |
The Ministry of Communications and Works, Department of Antiquities announces the completion of the The New York University Geronisos Island Excavations, under the direction of Professor Joan Breton Connelly, on Geronisos Island, just off the coast of Agios Georgios tis Pegeias, Pafos District.
The team of 17 excavators began work on May 18, focusing their efforts on the Central South Complex. This structure is made up of several small rooms, measuring roughly 4.5m. square, which are equipped with stone platforms that rise some 0.40m. above floor level. Quantities of drinking cups and bowls, jugs and lagynoi, as well as cooking pots and casseroles give evidence of dining activity within these rooms. Just to the north, an open courtyard or plateia was unearthed. It was virtually filled with hundreds of roof tiles, carefully stacked as if being stored. A full variety of types are represented including ridge tiles, pan tiles, and Lakonian tiles. It seems as if these were ready to be used for the repair of a roof or some other construction activity. But the builders never had the opportunity to put them in place, owing to destruction by an earthquake, probably that of 17 B.C.
The neighbouring trench showed further evidence of this catastrophic event. A great tumble of rubble wall material, with some fragments of architectural mouldings and ashlar blocks, was strewn across a level of broken roof tiles. Beneath the debris, fine and courseware pottery of 1st century B.C. date was recovered, including jugs, plates, bowls, and a stamped Rhodian amphora handle. A bronze needle, a lump of lead, an iron nail, and several fragments of cast glass bowls were recovered from the gravel floor.
This season also saw the excavation of a large round oven, measuring 0.90m in diameter. Made of broken amphora sherds set in a circle and line with mud and marl, this substantial structure probably had a beehive roof, that has long since collapsed into its interior. Quantities of charcoal and ash were found within it, as well as fragments of an Eastern sigillata A hemispherical bowl with gouged decoration. This oven clearly served the dining activities that took place in the Central South Complex. The precise nature of this activity is not yet fully understood, though evidence points to a cult of Apollo and to the presence of pilgrims who travelled out to worship and to banquet. Most of the material recovered here dates to the period 80-30 B.C. An even narrower chronology is likely and it is during the third quarter of the 1st century B.C. that the island enjoyed its most robust period of activity.
A wall running north-south for some 15m. can now be seen to continue straight across the island, thanks to the opening of a new trench some 10m. to the north. It is now certain that this wall continues for some 60m. to the very northern edge of Geronisos, where it was revealed during the 1997 excavations. This wall is part of the late Hellenistic ground plan, and may skirt a roadway or gravel paved path that runs from north-south just to the east of it.
The 2006 season on Geronisos included the participation of a number of eminent scholars engaged in the study of material excavated from the Island. Prof. Dimitris Plantzos of the University of Peloponnese came to study the unique series of stamp-seal amulets from Geronisos. His publication of this material, which shows important links with seal impressions found at Edfu in Egypt, will appear in the Report of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus for 2006.
Dr. George Maat of the University of Leiden’s School of Medicine came to study a skeleton unearthed on Geronisos in 2004. He has identified it as belonging to an individual aged 7.5-14.5 years, most probably in the 10-12 year old range. Though the child is too young to show definitive indicators of sex, indentations on the chin point may indicate that the individual was male. Buried at the very base of the island, these skeletal remains have given a C-14 date of the 1st century B.C.-1st century A.D.
Dr. Jolanta Mlynarczyk of the Univeristy of Warsaw continued her study of the late Hellenistic ceramics of Geronisos, while Dr. Mariusz Burdajewicz of the Warsaw Museum continued his study of the glass finds and prepared drawings of the pottery and architecture. Dr. Richard Anderson, architect of the Agora Excavations in Athens, prepared a new site plan of Geronisos using a total station laser theodolite.
Simon Demetropoulos served as staff ecologist and began his study of the Geronisos land snails. Dr. Paul Croft of the Lemba Archaeological Field Unit oversaw the ongoing program of rubble wall consolidation and in situ conservation. Walls were reconstituted using a mortar of red sand, white sand, lime, and cement in proportions recommended by the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus. Mud pisι was reconstituted with a mixture of Geronisos earth, marl, chaff, and wood glue. All wall foundations have been covered with geo-textiles at the close of the season and buried in a light backfilling of earth for protect from the elements. |
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