At the end of last week, we finally got a bit of momentum for our work here on Cyprus. We’re in the awkward position of trying to wrap up some work we did straddling the pandemic and a new project partly anchored in analysis that we almost a decade ago(!). This week, we’ve shifted entirely… Read More →
Over the last ten years or so, I’ve been working with a small but good team of scholars to publish the Roman, Late Roman, and Medieval period from the site of Polis tis Chrysochous on Cyprus. This is ancient Marion and Arsinoe for those of you less-sensitive to “dead naming” cities. This year, we’re working… Read More →
I’ve already broken from my summer reading list schedule by reading Virginia Burrus’s latest book Earthquakes and Gardens: Saint Hilarion’s Cyprus (2023). I don’t have much of a post today other than to observe that she appears to make a reference to my favorite Bob Marley song, “Duppy Conqueror” when she states concerning Hilarion’s first… Read More →
Like many scholars of ancient Cyprus, I’ve been fascinated by the rapidly expanding corpus of data on Roman and Late Roman mining practices on the island. Of course, even the most casual archaeologist on the island is bound to notice the nearly ubiquitous presence of slag in both archaeological and every day contexts. This detritus… Read More →
Michael Given has long been one of my heroes among survey archaeologists. His work with the Troodos Archaeological and Environmental Survey Project remains to my mind the gold standard for a large intensive survey project. So when he writes about survey, it doesn’t take much for me to pay attention. Given’s article “Towards a Post-Survey… Read More →
There comes a time in the semester, especially the spring semester, where I find myself just treading water and trying to keep my head above the waves. This is usually the result of grading, various projects coming in for landings, reading for class, manuscript reviews, and the typical day-to-day work of being alive. It’s during… Read More →
This weekend, I had the immense pleasure of reading Catherine Kearns’s The Rural Landscapes of Archaic Cyprus (2022). The book is fantastic (and I say this as someone who is both increasingly “Iron Age Curious” and has a more mature interest rural landscapes both on Cyprus and elsewhere). Kearns’s considers the emergence of the rural… Read More →
Just a short post this morning as I continue recovering from the holiday season! Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of reading Matthew Milliner’s Mother of the Lamb: The Story of a Global Icon (Fortress 2022). The book tells the story of the icon of the Virgin of the Passion from its origins on… Read More →
For some reason baptistery projects take a long time to come out. This week, two baptistery related projects of mine somehow reached milestones. It’s a Christmas miracle. The first is the MASSIVE Cambridge Guide to the Architecture of Christianity edited by Richard A. Etlin. I had only a tiny contribution to this gigantic and long… Read More →
My day has almost gotten away from me before the shock realization that I had not posted a link to my talk at the University of Cyprus’s Archaeological Research Unit yesterday! Here’s the link: Enjoy!
For the first time in many years, I’ll be going to the ASOR annual meeting and not present a paper! It’ll also be my first time at a major in person conference since the pandemic put a stop to them. So, if you’re in Boston at the meetings this week, please do stop by and… Read More →
One of the things that I’m trying to do as I find myself well and truly a “mid career” scholar is to focus on small things. Maybe it has to do with my interest in craft and even slow practices. Maybe it has to do with my distaste for senior (generally male) scholars producing BIG BOOKS about… Read More →
I really enjoyed Kevin Dicus’s recent article in AJA 126.4: “Refuse and the Roman City: Determining the Formation Processes of Refuse Assemblages Using Statistical Measures of Heterogeneity.” This article pushed me to read Guido Furlan’s 2017 article in EJA 20.2: “When Absence Means Things Are Going Well: Waste Disposal in Roman Towns and its Impact on… Read More →
The early fall is always an awkward time of year because it marks the intersection of summertime work and the more regular routine of the semester’s start (as well as baseball and football season). Over the last couple of week’s I’ve been working to pull together some of our work from the past summer on… Read More →
As I get old, one of my great weaknesses as a professional is becoming more and more apparent. As my always modest synapses have slowed down further and my limited pool of energy has gotten shallower, I find myself increasingly driven by deadlines rather than genuine curiosity about the past (or the present or the world). This… Read More →
Scholars interested in the architectural history of post-Roman Cyprus have been enjoying the immense (and sometimes overwhelming) outpouring of scholarship in their field over the last 20 years. Much of this work has been both high quality in terms of argument, but also (and perhaps as importantly) high production quality with careful illustrations, vivid photographs,… Read More →
