It’s starting to feel a bit like spring around here and that means both that I’m starting to plan for my summer research season and that I’m feeling some pressure to wrap up projects before everything goes on pause while I’m “doing the archaeology.” Over the last few days, I’ve started to work in earnest… Read More →
Spring break is almost over and I’m not sure that I got what I wanted to do done yet, but I’m still going to take a couple of days to recharge my batteries by watching some boxing and F1 while I catch up on some grading, finish a peer review, and maybe read something for… Read More →
Today’s post is as much an advertisement as anything else and for that, as always, I apologize. On Thursday evening, I’m giving a paper to the Friends of ASOR, which is a bit like the AIA lecture series. The paper will celebrate 20 years at the ancient harbor of Pyla-Koutsopetria on Cyprus and officially mark… Read More →
It’s going to be another day of weirdly crappy weather, but we’re almost a third of the way through the semester and it’s not -20°! Maybe it’s the strange weather, maybe it’s the hectic semester, or maybe it’s a kind of general fatigue, but I’m having a tough time feeling like February will be a… Read More →
The most recent issue of Historical Archaeology featured a nice gaggle of articles on the historical archaeology of the Mediterranean in a special issue edited by Michael Given and Russell Palmer. As readers of this blog know, this is a topic that is of particular interest to me especially in terms of historical archaeology in… Read More →
Over winter break, I had three things to do. First, I had to finish a paper on the Corinthian Periphery, then I had to make sure that my courses were prepped for the spring semester, and, then, I had to finish a draft of the conclusion to Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project, Volume 2 (PKAP2). This volume… Read More →
The last month or so has seen a little pair of recent articles on material from the region of Polis-Chrysochous in northwestern Cyprus. Both article take advantage of the remarkable continuity of settlement at the site and in the wider region which appears to have avoided the disruptions associated with the so-called “Arab Raids” in… Read More →
Winter break is both a nice respite from my teaching and service routine and also a chance to get some research and course preparations done amid the holiday festivities. I’m moderately excited to bring one project in for a landing and substantially move the needle on another before classes start again on January 8th. Grabbing… Read More →
I’m finally getting some reading done again and started to slowly churn my way through my “to read” pile. This weekend, I managed to read one book to prep myself for going to the ASOR annual meeting next week and one book for some vague future project that is distracting me. Book the First I… Read More →
In an effort to catch up on some reading this past week, I spent some time with Joachim Bretschneider, Athanasia Kanta, Jan Driessen, Excavations at Pyla-Kokkinokremos: Report on the 2014-2019 Campaigns. Louvain 2023. This book documents five seasons of field work at the Late Bronze Age site of Kokkinokremos which is in the coastal region… Read More →
This summer I read and savored Virginia Burrus’s Earthquakes and Gardens: St. Hilarion’s Cyprus (2023). It’s really good and is a must read for anyone even casually interested in Cyprus and quality academic writing (which, honestly, should be just about everyone). I’m not going to review this book here largely because it’s not the kind… Read More →
This is a long post. I had originally considered posting it as TWO posts or even just posting a PDF, but I decided to just go ahead and post the entire durned thing. Here is the preliminary report from our season at Polis. This is preliminary and provisional, of course. It’s rough in places and… Read More →
One of the simple pleasures of a study season is time to think actively with material. The last couple of weeks here in Cyprus, I’ve had the chance to study Roman lamps, look at kiln wasters, and attempt to sort out some stratigraphic and architectural relationships. I also had the chance to think about kilns,… Read More →
I’ve long wanted to give a paper on our work on Cyprus which adapts the chronology and discourse of the Roman and Late Roman period to the conventions of the Cypriot and Aegean Bronze Age. Thus, instead of talking about the Roman or Late Roman period, we’d talk about things like the Middle Roman IIIC… Read More →