Nation,narrative and commemoration: political ritual in divided Cyprus

This article examines the issue of political commemoration, focusing on the commemorations organized by different political parties in the two sides of divided Cyprus. It suggests a new analytical framework for the study of ritual in contemporary nation‐states that moves beyond the usual examination of any single ritual on its own terms. The use of comparison, both within each side and between the two sides, reveals how political actors stage commemorations of different historical events in order to propose contesting historical narratives. Hence, the meaning of any commemorative ritual can be understood only as part of the broader story that each narrative proposes. The historical narratives proposed by different political actors share certain common characteristics by virtue of all employing the narrative form: a beginning, a plot, certain categories of actors, the spatial location where history unfolds, the moral centre through which events are to be evaluated and the end. However, each narrative suggests a different story through which issues of identity and “otherness”, self‐justification and blame are negotiated in order to define the “imagined community” of the nation, its enemies and its pertinent history.     

From an Inconsequential Legacy to National Heritage: Revisiting the Conservation Approaches Towards the Ottoman Buildings in British Colonial Cyprus

Cyprus came under British control in 1878. At this time the Western-based orientalist mind-set, which saw ‘Ottoman’ as a synonym for stagnation was at its zenith, and this view was strategically disseminated as the European empires expanded. This also coincided with the evolution of the ethnic-nationalism that facilitated the formation of national heritage constructs. By analysing the case of Cyprus, a place which is entangled with British colonial governance as well as revolutionary Turkey, this paper aims to widen the discussion on the conservation trajectory of the Ottoman built heritage in post-Ottoman environments. Approaches to the restoration, interpretation, and management of Cyprus’s Ottoman buildings between 1878 and 1960 are dissected, assessed and categorized through British-era archival collections. The history of conservation practices is contextualised in changing political and professional perspectives, which reveal the role of Eurocentric paradigms of orientalism and nationalism in managing the perception and treatment processes of Ottoman-built heritage.     

Ais Giorkis: An unusual early Neolithic settlement in Cyprus

Abstract

For over a century, archaeologists have been intrigued by the inception of food production and sedentary lifeways, the so-called “Neolithic Revolution.” Research focused on the Near Eastern and Anatolian mainlands has documented some of the earliest Neolithic cultures known. The adjacent Mediterranean islands were generally believed to have been late recipients of Neolithic economies. Recent research challenges this by establishing both Late Epipalaeolithic and early Neolithic occupations on Cyprus. Ais Giorkis contributes to this revision. It is an early Neolithic site (ca. 7500 cal b.c.) in the uplands, unlike most contemporary sites, which are near the coast. Ais Giorkis is more complex than originally believed, containing unusual architecture, abundant and sophisticated artifacts, and some of the oldest directly dated domesticated plants in the Near East. It also has a faunal assemblage that includes small numbers of cattle bones, previously undocumented before the Bronze Age, but now shown to be present at three early Neolithic sites.     

Mapping the past: Turkish Cypriot narratives of time and place in the Canbulat museum,northern Cyprus

The Canbulat museum is located within the Venetian Walls of the mediaeval city of Famagusta in northern Cyprus, and traditionally marks the spot where the Ottoman warrior Canbulat fell during the siege of Famagusta in 1571. The tomb of Canbulat, which is housed within the museum, has for centuries played an important part in the folk tradition of Turkish Cypriots. Its incorporation into a formal museum in 1968 marked a conscious reworking of the Canbulat legend into a narrative of the Turkish presence in Cyprus. This paper explores the relationship between history and memory which emerges from the shared space and diverging practices of shrine and museum and considers the alternative visions of past, present and future which it opens up.     

The class route to nationhood: China,Vietnam, Norway,Cyprus – and France*

ABSTRACT. This essay explores the proposition that China and Vietnam represent a fourth class route to modern nationhood, in addition to the ethnic (German), civic (French) and plural (American) routes. Nation‐states emerging along the class route are characterised by an exclusive membership based on social class rather than just ethnicity, living under the same laws or participation in liberation from foreign rule. The essay compares China's and Vietnam's class‐based nationalism with the more inclusive labour movement nationalisms of Norway and Cyprus. Then it explains how the class route differs from the French civic route. In the conclusion, the author concedes that the Chinese and Vietnamese class route is perhaps a detour rather than a route of its own, since it leads to inevitable tension between the divisive history of how the nation was formed and the need of its later leaders to include and represent the same social classes that were originally excluded. These leaders and their national storytellers are forced to undertake a redefinition of the national self as ethnic, civic and/or plural in an attempt to recreate national legitimacy, often in competition with more radically nationalist opposition groups.     

Household and community behavior at Bronze Age Politiko-Troullia,Cyprus

Abstract

We investigate intrasite patterns of artifacts and floral and faunal data to interpret household and community behavior at the Middle Cypriot (Bronze Age) village of Politiko-Troullia in the foothills of the Troodos Mountains, Cyprus. Floral evidence indicates cultivation of orchard crops (e.g., olive and grape), as well as the persistence of woodlands that provided wood for fuel. Animal management combined herding of domesticated sheep, goat, pig, and cattle with the hunting of Mesopotamian fallow deer. Metallurgical evidence points to the production of utilitarian copper tools in household workshops. Group activities are reflected by the deposition of anthropomorphic figurines, spinning and weaving equipment, and deer bones in an open courtyard setting. In sum, Politiko-Troullia exemplifies a diversified agrarian economy on a distinctly anthropogenic landscape that fostered the development of household and supra-household social differentiation in pre-urban Bronze Age Cyprus.     

The prehistory of Cyprus: Problems and prospects

The archaeological record of prehistoric Cyprus is rich, diverse, well-published, and frequently enigmatic. Regarded by many as a bridge between western Asia and the Aegean, Cyprus and its past are frequently seen from scholarly perspectives prevalent in one of those two cultural areas. Its material culture, however, differs radically from that of either area. Apart from the early colonization episodes on the island (perhaps three during the pre-Neolithic and Neolithic), evidence of foreign contact remains limited until the Bronze Age (post-2500 B. C.). This study seeks to present the prehistory of Cyprus from an indigenous perspective, and to examine a series of archaeological problems that foreground Cyprus within its eastern Mediterranean context. The study begins with an overview of time, place, and the nature of fieldwork on the island, continues with a presentation and discussion of several significant issues in Cypriot prehistory (e.g., insularity, colonization, subsistence, regionalism, interaction, social complexity, economic diversity), and concludes with a brief discussion of prospects for the archaeology of Cyprus up to and beyond 2000.     

Geoarchaeological approaches to the environmental history of Cyprus: explication and critical evaluation

Geoarchaeology represents crossdisciplinary research focused on environmental issues and human activities, and directed primarily to social scientists. Site micro-studies are central to the enterprise, emphasizing cultural sediments and the taphonomic record of site formation, preservation, or destruction. But when expanded to include off-site investigation and watershed studies, geoarchaeology can go well beyond stratigraphy and context, to address human impacts on the environment or long-term sustainability. This paper articulates a research agenda to evaluate the largely anecdotal premise that the island of Cyprus has been degraded by millennia of improvident land use. First, it outlines Holocene settlement, land use and forest histories, as a differentiated model against which to apply specific types of investigation, and in conjunction with other archaeological sciences. Second, it applies Quaternary-style watershed study to confront commonplace misunderstandings about possible degradation, to show that most of the slope and stream deposits on Cyprus are of Pleistocene age. Third, it switches to examples of site micro-geoarchaeology to illustrate the possibilities of understanding detailed change. The purpose is heuristic, in the absence of many more site and off-site studies that incorporate bioarchaeology. Provisional inferences suggest that environmental damage may be limited, that even with heavy land-use stress, climatic triggers were critical to inaugurate change, and that the system may be more resilient than anticipated. Such caveats may encourage greater attention to environmental research design in ongoing and future excavation projects.     

'On of the Princypalle Havenes of the See': The Port of Famagusta and the Ship Graffiti in the Church of St George of the Greeks, Cyprus

In its 1000-year history the port has been the source of triumph and tragedy for the city of Famagusta, being the conduit through which flowed both enormous wealth and destruction. Today the French medieval and Greek Orthodox churches, and the Venetian walls, though ruined, still carry physical traces of this turbulent society in the form of ship graffiti. Though such images are often classified as 'low-art', they are nevertheless imbued with a deep social significance, which the maritime historian can yet use to get a glimpse of an important, though virtually-forgotten, heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean.
© 2007 The Author     

Bridge and Boundary: The Maritime Connections of Colonial Arequipa,Peru

International Journal of Historical Archaeology - European empires heavily relied on maritime connections for their expansion and operations. In the Andean region, where Spanish colonialism had a...     

Pottery production and distribution in prehistoric Bronze Age Cyprus. An application of pXRF analysis

Portable X-ray Fluorescence (pXRF) analysis of over 400 samples of Early and Middle Bronze Age Cypriot pottery from four widely separated sites identifies both local and non-local products at each. A series of analyses of sub-sets of the data highlights differences in the clays used at each site and for some distinctive types and wares. When assessed in the context of general typological, technological and stylistic factors these variations provide the basis for considering patterns of local production and inter-regional relationships across the island. Although the great majority of pots were locally made, particular wares and shapes were brought in from elsewhere. For some sites finer, more highly decorated vessels are mostly imports, but at others both simpler and more complex vessels were made of the same local clays. While small juglets or flasks may have been containers for transporting small quantities of rare substances, larger vessels are likely to have held less precious material. Open vessels, especially small bowls – some of which are plain, utilitarian items – represent another aspect of social behaviour and inter-regional relationships.     

Maps,Mapping, Modernity: Art and Cartography in the Twentieth Century

While the history of cartography has freed itself from debilitating debates over the scientific and artistic status of maps, considerations of the relationship between art and cartography have continued to focus largely on pre‐modern maps, avoiding critical examination of twentieth‐century art and science in cartography and leaving intact the impression that these followed distinct paths in the modern period. In this paper, however, I have drawn on theoretical work in Science Studies and taken account of modern art's separation from aesthetics to suggest that an examination of art and cartography in the twentieth century should focus on mapping practices rather than on maps as such. A summary overview of modern‐art movements and selected works indicates a continued, if critical, engagement of avant‐garde artists with cartography, and the examination of more popular newspaper artwork produced in the context of the intensely modern visual culture of mid‐twentieth century Los Angeles indicates a similarly close connection between modernity, art and cartography.     

The 4th‐Century‐BC Mazotos Shipwreck,Cyprus: a preliminary report

Since November 2007 an underwater project has been carried out by the Archaeological Research Unit of the University of Cyprus, in collaboration with the Department of Antiquities, at a shipwreck on the south coast, 14 miles south‐west of Larnaca. Its cargo consists mainly of Chian amphoras and has been provisionally dated to the 3rd quarter of the 4th century BC. The good state of preservation of the site gives an opportunity for studying amphora stowage and the wreck‐formation process. Moreover, it can shed new light on sea‐routes and trade between Cyprus and the Aegean during the late Classical period. © 2010 The Author     

Maritime Archaeology and Maritime Heritage Protection in the Disputed Territory of Northern Cyprus

Between 1967 and 1974, the island of Cyprus was a centre of maritime archaeology in the eastern Mediterranean. Individuals such as Michael and Susan Katzev, George Bass, Jeremy Green and Richard Steffy were living on and visiting the island, and testing and developing methods still common in the discipline. The hostilities on Cyprus in the summer of 1974 and the implementation of international regulations limiting archaeological work in the northern portion of the island, however, had repercussions still evident today. This article summarizes past maritime archaeological work along the northern coastline, addresses the regulations limiting archaeological activity in the region and discusses a new training program licensed by the Nautical Archaeology Society aiding in the protection of the island’s maritime heritage representing approximately 10,000 years of activity.

The Problem of the Missing Harbour of Evagoras at Salamis,Cyprus: a review of the evidence and pointers to a solution

This article summarises the archaeological evidence for the existence of Evagoras' naval harbour at Salamis in North Cyprus, which ancient texts credit him with building c.410–400 BC. Based on a critical examination of previous surveys and his own on‐site observations, the author concludes there is indicative evidence of a constructed harbour c.800 m long, which was divided into two basins by a stone jetty, separated from the city by a stone wall and with some evidence of ship‐sheds at its north end. © 2012 The Author     

Colonial encounters,local knowledge and the making of the cartographic archive in the Venetian Peloponnese

Current research on the cartography of the Venetian Empire rests on a state-centred perspective which reduces maps to mere technical tools in the service of maritime expansion and colonial government. In contrast, this paper argues that such an approach cannot sufficiently account for the multiple ethnocartographic transactions between Venetian authorities and local communities which defined Venetian map-making projects. Taking the seventeenth-century conquest of the Peloponnese as its focus, the paper proposes to rethink the Venetian cartographic archive as constituted through a set of socio-cultural and political practices involving both colonial surveyors and native inhabitants. By analysing the assemblage of cartographic knowledge in the context of the encounter between colonisers and colonised, the paper examines topographical surveys as the product of cross-cultural communication shaped through negotiation, competition and unequal dialogue. Ultimately, the paper aims to show the heuristic value of a dialogic approach to cartography for a better understanding of both the colonial society of the Venetian Peloponnese and the making of knowledge in Venice's overseas empire.     

The 4th-century B.C. shipwreck at Mazotos,Cyprus: New techniques and methodologies in the 3D mapping of shipwreck excavations

Abstract

Well preserved ancient shipwrecks are rare in the archaeological record, but when discovered, they can provide valuable information on a wide range of research issues if analyzed and documented properly. In this paper we discuss the significance, potential, and constraints of mapping methods applied during the underwater excavation of shipwreck sites with special emphasis on stratigraphy, documentation of finds, and reconstruction of site formation processes. As a case study, we present the digital photogrammetry and computer vision software programs used in the excavation of the 4th-century b.c. shipwreck at Mazotos, Cyprus. Our goal is to develop a targeted documentation and mapping method of ongoing shipwreck excavations so that others can address complex research questions concerning this unique discipline of archaeology.     

How the Pueblos Became Global: Colonial Appropriations, Resistance, and Diversity in the North American Southwest

Theories of colonialism and modernity often present divergent ways of understanding how indigenous populations became global, yet there are several points of intersection. These points include: (1) the heterogeneity present within indigenous groups that led to varied experiences of colonialism, (2) the diversity in colonial programs, (3) how the colonized and the colonizers appropriated goods and labor from each other, and (4) the variable practices of indigenous resistance. These intersections are illustrated through a discussion of the Pueblos of the North American Southwest, from the late “precontact” period (ca. AD 1400) to the present.     

Gardens, Legitimation, and Resistance

Eighteenth-century garden design has been interpreted in terms of legitimation, a tool with which elites attempted to maintain power and authority over marginalized groups. But most acts of aesthetic landscaping, it can be argued, were primarily directed not towards the poor but to rival groups within the propertied. Similarly, any opposition to the dominant ideology expressed in the design of landscape was mainly mounted by disaffected groups within the ranks of the franchised. In so far as the poor in this period inscribed their mark upon the land, it was in acts of vandalism or reappropriation which have left little direct trace in the archaeological record.