Updates from Pyla-Vigla on Cyprus

Last week, I was really excited to get a copy of an off print from the Journal of Hellenistic Pottery and Material Culture titled: “Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project: Excavations at Pyla-Vigla in 2022”. It is essentially an annual report for work at the site of Pyla-Vigla. 

Long time readers of the blog will remember this site as the location of a Hellenistic fortification on the west side of Larnaka Bay in Cyprus. We discovered this site over the course of our work with the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project (PKAP) nearly two decades ago and conducted some small scale excavations to ground-truth some resistivity and GPR prospecting. Once we became convinced that the main period represented at the site was Late Classical or Early Hellenistic, we became far less interested in continuing our work there. Fortunately, one member of the PKAP team, Brandon Olson, was working on a dissertation on this very period and he had an obvious interest in the material from Pyla-Vigla. He had also become familiar with the particular challenges associated with working in the Dhekelia SBA and negotiation with the British base there for access and permission. It was only natural then to pass this site onto him and his team for further work.

Over the last few years, albeit interrupted by the pandemic, he’s conducted field work at the site and opened larger exposures in an effort to develop a more nuanced understanding of the buildings within the circuit of the fortification walls. The short span of occupation for the fortification and the buildings within its circuit presents a pretty great opportunity to capture a snapshot of Early Hellenistic activity on the site. One of the most interesting contributions made by Brandon Olson and his team is the consistent discovery of intact floor surfaces which preserved apparent use assemblages. 

We had tentatively argued that the structures within the walls of Pyla-Vigla was a mercenary camp perhaps installed by one of the waring Hellenistic factions who scuffled for the island in the immediate aftermath of Alexander’s death. The existence of projectile points and lead sling pellets as well as the site’s short period of occupation appears to confirm Pyla-Vigla’s status as a mercenary camp. Recent excavations have revealed evidence for bread baking (a bread stamp), some form of light industrial work requiring a plaster basin, and perhaps more dynamic and complex domestic activity such as weaving based on the recovery of some unfired loom weights.

Unfortunately, this most recent report does not yet appear to be available online, but you can read the reports from the 2018 and 2019 excavations here and here respectively.

We’re slowly preparing the results from our work in 2008, 2009, and 2012 for publication and have released the data from our excavations here.