On Tom Davis

On Tuesday, we received the sad new that Tom Davis passed away. Tom was the director of Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI), a vastly experienced archaeologist, and he co-edited the Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology with me and David Pettegrew. He had a big personality, opinions, and energy. And he played an important role in my development as a scholar.

As director of CAARI, he welcomed me and my colleagues when we started to work on Cyprus. In fact, his office was our first port-of-call before we surveyed a field or dug a single trench. We talked with him about what it was like to work on Cyprus and whether it would be possible for us to even get permits for a project. He gave us the lay of the land and helped us navigate those nervous first years. When we made mistakes, Tom talked us through ways to mitigate damage. In fact, when we inadvertently crossed a very powerful senior archaeologists on the island, Tom went with our project director to make amends. When we got things done well, Tom was gracious with his praise. I remember his snarky asides to me after one of our first papers at the CAARI workshop received a less than charitable line of questioning. Tom let us know that he had our back and that we were part of a community.   

When Tom left his position at CAARI, the vibe in the place changed (as it always must when new people come in), but it was cool to see him move to an academic position and direct excavations at Kourion. We visited him on site from time to time and he was always a gracious host and wanted to talk archaeology, archaeological politics on the island, and about our work. It was always great to see him surrounded by early career scholars and graduate students. 

His work at Kourion and his long history of excavating in the Levant and Egypt partly motivated me and David Pettegrew to ask him to co-edit the Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology with us. The project was big, complicated, and required lots of contacts, collaboration, and work. Tom stepped in and helped make contacts especially for areas outside our expertise. He also was a spirited collaborator who managed to help us despite being over committed as he returned to academia. It was cool to have a volume on Early Christian archaeology edited by three people who study Roman and Late Roman Cyprus, an island that was neither in the epicenter of Early Christian research nor where the archaeology of Early Christianity had much purchase. 

When I left the familiar (if not entirely comfortable) world of Greek archaeology and came to work on Cyprus, I had no mentors or guides. Tom Davis was one of the first people to extend a hand to us, show us the ropes, and encourage us with his enthusiasm (and his famous, if gently lampooned wisdom). I’ll miss conversations with Tom at academic conferences and on the island and their alternation between excited (and often speculative) conversations and conspiratorial (and gossipy) asides. He was good to us and he was good for archaeology on Cyprus. And he inspired me in some way to work to pay forward his generosity to the next generation of in my discipline.