Back in the Apotheke

Most of our time at Polis this year will be spent in the apotheke (or storeroom) where the Princeton Cyprus Expedition stores the thousands of context pottery sherds in hundred of 1×1 m trays. Scott Moore and I set up a work area in the storeroom and patiently sort our way through the trays analyzing the finds and doing our best to assign dates to each context. In general, Scott is in charge of the ceramics and I am in charge of the stratigraphy and contexts, but over the years that I’ve worked at Polis, I’ve become moderately adept at recognizing the key types of pottery and flagging those contexts that would reward more careful attention.

This week, our main goal has been to focus on finishing our study of the kiln area to the east of the basilica. This involves what we’ve interpreted as a kiln in its first phase, a levigation pool in a later phase, and perhaps a stretch of Roman period road that runs north-south to the east of ceramic production area. 

As we argued in a paper that we delivered at the annual ASOR meeting last fall, the levigation pool and kiln represents one of two industrial sites excavated in what we call area E.F2 based on the Princeton grid for their excavations at Polis. The areas are situated on either side of a significant drainage down the northern side of the ancient city of Arsinoe. Both industrial areas show signs of continuous modification often more frequently than we can date on the basis of our ceramics. The general patterns seems to be stacking walls on top of the foundations of earlier walls and then creating new floor levels with fills. Where as the industrial area west of the basilica seems to have fallen out of use by the time the area was leveled for the construction of the basilica style church in the 6th century, the kiln area to the east of the basilica shows signs of continued activity into the Late Antiquity. 

In most cases, the churned up character of this area prevents us from making any particularly compelling observations regarding chronology or even stratigraphy, but occasionally, there are interesting features that almost demand comment. For example, there are at least two systems of drains running along what appears to be a road on the eastern side of the kiln area. One drain was plaster lined and a later drain was a series of terracotta pipes some of which appear to have been deliberately cut in half. These pipes appear to run immediately beneath some paving stones perhaps associated with the road surface. Below these pipes is an earlier series of drains that run parallel to the pipes. These both appear to be Roman in date. The earth beneath the drain pipes contains Roman period material that is effectively contemporary with the material above the pipes and the plaster drains. The only hint at a sequence  

While it seems improbable that we will be able to untangle the entire sequence of events in these areas, partly because E.F2 was riddled with burials in Late Antiquity and these often cut into the earlier levels and compromised the stratigraphy and context present. At the same time, the Roman contexts present at E.F2 reveals a snapshot of the Roman activity at the site. The diverse assemblage of fine wares, cooking wares, and utility wares presents a point of reference for Roman life and exchange in the