Kilns, Slopes, Pools, and Terraces

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, pools, and local topography in a way that seems much harder to do when I’m in my little office in North Dakota. 

Here are three recent thoughts on the kiln and basin/pool at Polis.

1. The kiln itself may have been cut into the side of a ravine. This is not only a common placement for kilns in the Mediterranean, but a sensible one too. The slope provided structure to support the walls of the kiln. More than that, the banks of ravines were often marginal spaces in the landscape and thus suitable for the kinds of dirty, smoking, and labor intensive industrial activities associated with kilns of various types. 

2. Terracing and the Pool. In previous blog posts I noted that what we’ve interpreted the pool as a necessary feature of large scale ceramic production and as later than the kiln (indeed, it stood above the kiln). This suggest that the pool and the kiln represented at least two phases of ceramic production in this area of the ancient city of Arsinoe. More than that, the construction of the pool likely required the construction of a terrace which accounts for the messy cuts that that the excavators documented through out the area of the pool. These cuts could represent efforts to cut and fill to create a level area for the building. Moreover, the cutting and filling might account for some evidence late material being found lower in certain contexts and earlier material appearing higher in some fills. While we probably won’t have enough evidence 

3. Finally, we’ve been thinking about and studying the ceramic from the various fills associated with the kiln and the pool. This material is all in secondary context, but like so much of the area around E.F2, these secondary contexts can tell the story of the city of Arsinoe. The fragments came from the city of Arsinoe before they were dumped to create new surfaces, to fill voids like the kiln, and to control the flow of water down what may have been a rather deep ravine. Broken parts of transport vessels, cooking pots, table wares, lamps, and utility wares reveal the connection between Arsinoe and other places, local preferences for table ware and lamps, and change over time. Instead of uncovering contexts that reveal direct traces of activities at the site, our work has focused on the detritus left by the residents of the city over centuries and reused in different places and for different reasons.