Music Monday: Big Bands and Shamanism

Today is the last day of my winter research leave and the eve of the first day of the new semester. It makes sense then to look backward (a bit) and forward in a mystical way.

I was pleasantly surprised to see two big band albums kicking around on various “best of 2025” lists and I have enjoyed both of them. 

The first is Tom Smith’s A Year in the Life. I don’t know much about Smith other than he’s a saxophone player, but the band is tight and particularly benefits from Jamie McCredie’s guitar playing. One review notes that at times, the band has a Thad Jones/Mel Lewis sound to it and I agree. But it isn’t just a throwback to the late-1960s big band sound. It has a vibe of its own and leans into contemporary jazz enough to encourage me to listen to it more than once! 

The other big band album that I’ve seen kicking around on lists is Interaction: 3 Cohens & WDR Big Band. The WDR Big Band is a German big band out of Cologne. I’ve listened to them from time to time, but they’re not really in my regular rotation. This album might just change that. The blend of traditional jazz styles (including rags!) and modern sensibilities is really nice. The band isn’t trying to reproduce some kind of vintage sound and plays with polished and contemporary sensibilities. The star of the show for me, though, is Anat Cohen’s clarinet. 

I’ll leave you with a couple more cuts from the album to give you a sense of its range:

Lest you think I’ve totally succumbed to the vigorous complexity of large ensemble jazz, I do still listen to edgier small ensemble improvised music. For example, I was enthralled by Berlin-based, Korean sax player Jung-jae Kim’s Shamanism. As with most improvised music, it is perhaps best to get a sense for it live:

Hearing the album, I recalled Ivo Perelman, Matthew Shipp, and Joe Morris’s album of the same name (on one of my favorite labels Chad Fowler’s Mahakala Music).

Friday Varia and Quick Hits

It isn’t the first Friday of the new year (h/t to Dimitri Nakassis), but it is the first Varia and Quick Hits of 2026. We’re enjoying unseasonably warm weather here in North Dakotaland with highs soaring into the upper 20s (and even kissing the 30s). And I hope that this warmth stays with us (and with all my readers) into the new year.

This is a fun sports weekend with the semifinals of the college football playoffs already underway and the NFL Wildcard season about to kick off. I don’t hold out much hope for my Eagles, but I’ll watch anyway. The Sixers and my Mighty Spiders continue to amble though their seasons losing a few games that should probably win and winning some games that I think they should lose. It’s enough to keep me interested! 

The spring semester starts on Tuesday and my classes — Roman History, Western Civilization I, and the Practicum in Writing, Editing, and Publishing — are almost ready to go. This means that the happy shadow of my winter research leave is receding into blinding light of the oncoming semester.

It seems like a good time for quick hits and varia:

Public Domain Day 2026

One of the most exciting days of the year is Public Domain Day! On January 1 each year, works copyrighted 95 years prior enter the public domain. This means that anything published in the US in 1930 is now in the public domain!

Happy New Year!

For North Dakota Quarterly, this means the volume 20 is now available with no restrictions. You can enjoy the esteemed jurist Sveinbjor Johnson’s article on “The University and the State” Or these two poems dedicated to the memory of Carl Ben Eielson.

Mdp.39015075902778 seq_246.

Of course, there are plenty of other things to read from this year. John Dos Passos’s The 42nd Parallel, the first of his U.S.A. Trilogy, Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies, or for more popular faire Dashiell Hammett’s, The Maltese Falcon or Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison. For those “Hellenically inclined” check out Thornton Wilder’s The Woman of Andros. For those who enjoy the more Gothic side of things, check out Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. 

If you’re into magazines, you probably already know that you can find the entire run of the New Masses (1926–1948) is available online, but now the 1930 volume in the public domain (which features unsurprisingly som John Dos Passos!). Volume 4 of Prairie Schooner from 1930 offers perspectives on a perennial question in Higher Ed, “Should Professors Think?” Or a later issue of The Midland which features these nice winter poems from Frederick ten Hoor in volume 16:

Inu.32000000697351 seq_26.

Writing Wednesday: The Kiln, Come Context, and a Conclusion

As readers of this blog know, I’ve been working on a paper about the kiln and production areas at Polis over my winter research leave. Most of the paper’s narrative and argument are done now and I’m working with my co-author, Scott Moore, on the lamp and ceramic catalogues.

So far, I’ve shared a section on a lamp deposit, a levigation pool, and a kiln. The following sections situate the ceramic production area in its context at the site and offer some tepid (and tentative) conclusions.

 

The Area and Historical Context

The kiln and levigation pool’s position along the east side of the north-south drainage running through the area of E.F2 represents only one feature in what was a bustling industrial district in the Roman period. Fifteen meters to the west stand another cluster of workshops and industrial installations. These workshops featured what appears to have been a furnace or hearth and several deep drains which may have been wells or cisterns. The presence of over 120 fragments of terracotta figurines including a mold suggests that terracotta manufacturing occurred in E.F2. The presence of iron slag in clay lined pits, chunks of lead, fragments of ochre and pigments, and stone bowls and crucibles provides additional evidence for a wide range of manufacturing in the area (Najbjerg 2012). Much like the kiln and later levigation pool, it appears that these installations saw nearly constant adaptation over a relatively short period of time during the Roman period. There are series of superimposed floor surfaces and the walls that indicate constant rebuilding especially along the eastern side of these structures and aligned, as if terrace walls, with the western slope of the drainage. The material from beneath the various superimposed surfaces is chronologically indistinguishable suggesting regular adaptation and reconstruction of the area during the Roman period.

The buildings along the eastern and western sides of the ravine are bounded to the south by an east-west road, the ”south road,” that ran across the contour of the hillslope. The road is paved with large stone slabs and has the remains of at least two drainage systems. One is a plaster lined channel that runs through the center of the road; the other features a series of terracotta pipes that run beneath the northern side of road and flow east to west. At Paphos, the terracotta pipes primarily seem to have served as drainage pipes, and it seems like that the channels and the pipes functioned to control the flow of water down the slope, through the natural drainage, and around the industrial installations in E.F2. Interestingly, the excavators at Paphos date most of the ceramic pipes in primary use to the 2nd century AD (with some 4th century examples in secondary use) (Romaniuk 2021, 371). The east-west road joins two north-south roads with one running to the west the workshops on the western side of the drainage and the other to the east of the levigation pool.

The ”eastern road” also features two sets of drains: one consisting of terracotta pipes cut in half and the other a plaster lined channel. The excavator argues that in this case, the terracotta pipes superseded the plaster lined channel which is cut into a level of rubble that probably served as the bedding for the road. The stratigraphy of the drains in both roads remains ambiguous as both the pipes and the plaster lined channel are both cut in the same rubbly layers beneath the road which appears to date no earlier than the 2nd century AD on the basis of a few ESA sherds beneath the terracotta pipes (T06.1990.L45). The presence of a few sherds of Late Roman pottery beneath the latest surface of the eastern road (T06.1990.L34) suggests that the modified terracotta pipes may date to that period. This would reinforce an interpretation that supposes the central location of the plaster line drain as contemporary with the road and the terracotta pipes a later, perhaps Late Antique addition. At some point, presumably later in the Late Antique period but before the construction of the basilica, a wall is built across the road. This wall sits atop a thin lens of Late Roman soil (T06.1990.L16 and L17).

The road running to the west of the workshops on the western side of the natural drainage, the “western road,” features two channels. It appears that an earlier channel ran along west side of the road. The construction of a monumental quadrifrons arch at the intersection of the western road and the east-west road interrupted this channel and a new stone lined channel was built to the west of the original routing water around the base of the arch.

These roads join at right angles indicating that the city of Arsinoe was organized on an orthogonal grid presumably when Ptolemy II Philadelphos refounded the city in the 3rd century BC. The workshops in this area appear to respect the grid at least until the Late Roman period when a wall interrupts the east road. The superimposed surfaces of “east road,” the installation of terracotta pipes on the “east road” and ”south road”, and the modification of the drains on the ”west road“ reflect their maintenance and adaptation as well as ongoing concerns for drainage. The orthogonal character of the roads in this area suggest that the workshops are well integrated into the organization of the urban center. At the same time, it seems unlikely that they were close to habitation as the smoke and noise from kilns, furnaces, and workshops would have made unpleasant neighbors. Their location along the northern edge of the city, however, would have provided access both the coast and the city as well as routes that availed themselves to the coastal plain. The position of the workshops near the coast and coastal plain would have situated them along coastal routes that transported copper ore through the region and given the workshops easy access to seaborne trade in raw glass. Presumably this would have also allowed the workshops to export their products.

Conclusion

Excavations by the Princeton Cyprus Expedition confirmed the existence of production along the northern edge of the city of Arsinoe. The presence of a ravine or drainage through this area introduced drainage problems and the lack of level ground combined to make it unsuitable for domestic or monumental construction. Instead, the area saw a series of continuously adapted industrial features including a kiln superseded by a levigation pool. While the date of the kiln remains unclear, the levigation pool appears to have been constructed in the 2nd century AD. The presence of a an assemblage of late series Cypriot Sigillata and cooking pots associated with the levigation pool provides a solid indicator of its date. It is tempting to see the date of the levigation pool as contemporary with the modification to the “south road” and the installation of a terracotta tile pipeline along its north edge, but this is speculation.

A more interesting argument involves the assemblage of lamps found mixed with Late Roman material in what we have argued in a leveling fill for the basilica. This group of lamps was distinct compared to lamps found elsewhere at the site and the presence of unlit lamps from the same mould further suggests local production. Moreover, the lamps appeared with 2nd century material that was both contemporary with and similar to that found associated with the levigation pool. This connection alone, of course, is insufficient to assign the lamps to the levigation pool, much less the kiln. That said, it remains an intriguing possibility that exists in the grey area between standards of archaeological proof and the broader domain of interpretation. It is interpretatively plausible to associate these lamps (along with the terracotta figurines) with production in this area of the city of Arsinoe even if the highest levels of evidentiary proof remains elusive.

Boeotia III: Some Unboxing Notes

Over the weekend, I spent about 10 hours with John Bintliff, Emeri Farinetti, and Anthony Snodgrass’s latest publication from their work in Boeotia from 1978-2001: Boeotia Project, Volume III: Hyettos. The Origins, Florescence and Afterlife of a Small Boeotian City (2025). 

It is massive (700+ pages), dense (in two columns!), and it is also open access! In fact, you can download it here. Funny story: I was so excited to get a copy, that when I saw people buzzing about it on social media, I ordered a paper copy before I knew that I could just download it. Do I regret this. No. 

I had the vague idea that I could spend 10 or so hours with this book and that might be enough for a preliminary review. It turns out that I was mistaken. That said, I think that I have enjoyed the volume enough to do the equivalent of an product “unboxing” where I can offer a few preliminary observations.

1. Modify and Adapt. If I were going to write a formal, published review of this book, the first thing I would do is hyperlink the living daylights out of the it. For example, the best description of sites is in “Chapter 4: The analysis of the Hyettos rural landscape (ii): the CN rural sites” where Bintliff and Farinetti describe and interpret each site in some detail. These sites are then discussed throughout the volume in different contexts and by different authors. As the book is downloaded, it is difficult to move between the original description of the site and later analysis. The internal link would solve this beautifully. 

I was tempted (for a moment) to see whether I could easily modify the book to allow a reader to move more easily between sections. Then I noticed that the book was published with a ND license and technically my modifications would violate this license. Of course, I could do it anyway, but I suspect that if the authors publish a book with a restrictive license like this, they are not inclined to entertain modifications.

2. Published Data. As readers of my blog know, I am very interested in how projects publish data. It was exciting to see the Boeotia project published their ceramic data as simple .xlsx downloads here. (They also published their data on architectural fragments here). This data appears to not have any license associated with it which makes it tempting to think of ways to allow the reader to integrate it more tightly with the volume. With the vast number of online data presentation and publication platforms available, it seems pretty easy to create a way to link specifically to particular datasets (say, site data) as well as making the entire dataset available. 

3. Sites. The Boeotia survey pioneered offsite survey not only by collecting data at scale, but offering arguments for why this data matters. Foremost among these arguments it the (in)famous manuring hypothesis which suggests that offsite halos around settlement reflect the scatter of trash associated with the spreading of manure into market gardens around more dense settlements. Alternately, the halo could represent lower density settlement and activity areas surrounding a core settlement. The relatively lower density and shorter term occupation would lead to lower density ceramic scatters that appear archaeologically in very similar ways to manuring especially as they are likely to contain similar assemblages of household ceramics.

The Boeotia project also continued to sample higher density assemblages in the landscape at a higher level. These are areas that exceeded the surrounding density to such an extent that they plausibly represent higher intensity activity areas in the past. By sampling these areas more intensively, the survey teams produced a more robust sample of artifacts and a better relative measure of site densities. This allowed them to discern where densities “fall off” around the borders of the site and return to the level of background scatter and to speak more directly to the function of activities at the site. The functional cohesion of the various period assemblages and the continuity of densities creates a compelling argument for these sites as actually existing as activity areas in the past rather than as the accidental or incidental overlap of lower density scatters. In short, the sites documented by this project are convincing.

4. Early Byzantine Pottery, Assemblages, and Settlement. Finally, I was pretty excited to  read Athanasios K. Vionis, with Chrystalla Loizou’s chapter on “A household archaeology and history of Hyettos and its territory: the Byzantine to Early Modern pottery.” The thing that immediately caught my eye was their discussion of Early Byzantine pottery — particularly handmade and slow-wheel made wares. What’s distinct about their discussion is that they do not simply identify random sherds in offsite scatters, which are a rare, but not unexpected occurrence in areas with long settlement history, but they are able to identify assemblages that include amphora, flat bottomed pitchers (or juglets) and even some burnished brown table wares. While the number of sherds remains small, the diversity in the assemblages is perhaps sufficient to define persistent settlement during these often shadowy centuries.

My interest in this is two fold. First, as readers of this blog know, I’m puttering away on publishing the a more fulsome treatment of the “Slavic” (or better Early Byzantine pottery) from Isthmia and I’ve very recently agreed to write a chapter on the economy of the Early Byzantine countryside (with emphasis, I suspect, on Greece and Cyprus). The traces of evidence for this period are quite scant and the appearance of a cluster of sherds that suggest a domestic assemblage is meaningful indeed.

There is much more to say about this volume and there is a good chance that a longer, more detailed review will appear on this very blog in the near future.

Music Monday: Some New Music in the New Year (and one old album)

I’ve been surfing the various year end lists to find albums that I missed when they came out this year. This year, I did a pretty good job keeping abreast of new releases, but there are always a few that catch me.

First, I think the Guardian list named Michael Wollny’s album Living Ghosts their album of the year in 2025. It is a great album and whether it was the best album to drop this year is less relevant to me than the sheer pleasure I have had listening to it. 

Check it out here. 

I’m also enjoying Jaleel Shaw’s 2025 release, Painter of the Invisible. I think I discovered this on DownBeat‘s year end review.  I’ve known Shaw in some ensembles (including Nduduzo Makhathini, In the Spirit of Nu (2022) which I very much enjoyed), but I haven’t known him as a solo artist (and from what I can gather he’s released relatively few albums as leader). Anyway, the album is very enjoyable and lyrical without necessarily pushing any limits. His alto saxophone feels very much, of the moment where technical flamboyance has given way to lyrical command and tone.   

Along similar alto saxophone lines, but from a very different time and place, check out Hank Crawford’s Help Me Make it Through the Night (1972) on Creed Taylor’s Kudu imprint of his CTI label. “Ham” is a bit of an Allstar outing with Grover Washington Jr. on tenor, Pepper Adams on baritone, Eric Gale in guitar,  Airto Moreira on drums, Idris Muhammad on piano and Ron Carter on bass. The rest of the album featured more common Kudu arrangements and musicians and that means STRINGS.

I’ve been thinking about doing a deep dive into the Kudu label sometime this year, and if you enjoy this album, you’ll know why.

Photo Friday

I bought myself a totally random gift with some Christmas money (which is apparently still a thing in our house). 

I got a Sigma DP2 Quattro mostly because it’s profoundly weird and flawed. It refused to take good photos in low light (below, say, ISO 800 and even at 400 it’s dodgy). Its white balance is bizarre at best. It takes forever to write to its memory card and its autofocus is more a general suggestion than a precise instrument. I get about 50 shots from a battery. On top of that, it looks like a early-1990s mobile phone and is difficult to use without pushing a random button.

On the other hand, the camera has a FOVEON SENSOR (which I’m guessing is related to the Greek word for FEAR). This sensor is low contrast, but incredibly sensitive to color and light. There are those who feel like it is very close to film (which is the audiophile equivalent of saying a DAC sounds like vinyl or a solid-state amplifier sounds like tubes). Others praise the colors it produces and how it captures shading and tone. 

Most admit that taking photos with a Sigma camera forces you to slow down. Since a battery only offers 40 or 50 shots, each shot takes about 20 seconds to write to the memory card, and the camera is bizarrely designed, it requires a bit of thought before using it and despite being digital, it will not offer immediate rewards, especially if you have to process the photos using the primitive Sigma Photo Pro application (which is necessary for Sigma’s proprietary X3F . It is effectively the opposite of my Ricoh GRIII which is the quintessential point and shoot.

As an aside: it turns out that slowing done on a walk in the park when it’s -3° F isn’t as therapeutic as I had envisioned. That said, there will be warmer days and I’m looking forward to my leisurely strolls through the village in Cyprus and Greece. 

I’ve only had the camera for a few days and I’m still trying to figure out how to take good photos with it, but I’m having fun. My plan is to get some monochrome images from the Sigma before my photography habit (cough, discipline) succumbs to the new semester. 

SDIM0082_2 2.

New Year’s Goals

I don’t really do New Year’s resolutions, but I do think that the end of a calendar year is a good time to reflect on what I can do better, more, or differently. Even if these musings only inspire a moment of reflection, then I think they’ve more or less served their purpose.   

My goals last year were things like play more chess (which I think that I managed to do: I played just under 800 games of chess on chess.com and Lichess in various formats (5 minute blitz games, 10+5 games, 3 Day games, and even some “bullet” games, just for fun). I started writing more in my notebook. I exercised consistently. And I finished my Bakken book. I tried to do more for others, which in hindsight is probably not something that I should designate a resolution.

In 2026, I have two routine goals.

1. Write 100 Notebook Entries.  Last year, I managed about 65 and felt like there were times when I wanted to write and had things to write, but for some reason just didn’t do it. I think that 100 is within easy reach. After all, it’s just two per week right? 

Beyond the nice round number, I feel like 100 entries will be enough for me to figure out whether writing regularly in a notebook will help me become a better writer and thinker. My biggest concern is whether short, thoughtful writing exercises, like a notebook promotes will help me refine my writing in ways that longer, more relaxed, and digitally mediated exercises don’t.

2. Take Photos. I don’t really keep track of how many photos I take, but I know that I sometimes grow lazy and don’t carry my camera with me when I’m out on walks, I’ve struggled to make time to work on some interior photographs (which I have planned for a little photo essay), and I don’t necessarily take photographs with any sense of discipline. As a result, I accumulate random snapshots, poorly composed pictures, and sometimes go days without using a camera. This, of course, isn’t the recipe for becoming a better (or more satisfying) photographer.

There are two specific goals:

3. Finish PKAP II. This manuscript is killing me. This is the second volume documenting my work with David Pettegrew and Scott Moore at the sites of Pyla-Koutsopetria and Pyla-Vigla on Cyprus. At some point around 2014, we had 75% of the volume complete … and then it stalled. It stalled for a many reasons: I started working at Polis and in the Western Argolid; some of our authors enjoy fieldwork more than writing; David and I started editing the Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology; Scott became a Distinguished Professor; David and I worked together to publish EKAS, and so on. Over the last two years, we’ve managed to close the gap to about 95%. We’re waiting on ONE contributor who has promised us her chapter “by the end of the month” (which month was not entirely clear, but a promise is a promise). We have the rest of the bits and bobs in place. We have to finish this now.

4. Get North Dakota Quarterly on more sound financial footing. As readers of this blog know, the University of Nebraska Press pulled the carpet out from under NDQ at the end of the summer forcing us to scramble to raise money for a subvention to keep our relationship with that press. This wasn’t a great situation, but things like this happen. Publishing is a proverbial “frog eat frog” business. I’ll post a longer note on this later in the year.

Things are still in flux for the Quarterly, although I feel confident that we have at least two more years of issues ahead of us. My goal is to get NDQ funded through volume 100 and then some time between volume 95 and 98 step aside as editor so that someone else can shape the Quarterly knowing that they have a stable funding situation.   

There are two larger “big picture” goals:

5. More Discipline, Less Habit. Over the last year, I’ve found myself becoming pretty habitual with things. I write my blog, I exercise, I play chess, I read stuff, keep on top of my classes, and try to be a good departmental citizen. My abiding concern is that some of this has become just habit. In other words, I’m doing stuff because it’s the stuff I do.

Most days, routine involves playing a listless game of chess or moving my legs on my indoor bike just to do exercise (rather than with a plan on improvement or even enjoying the moment). It’s here that any sense of discipline lapses and instead routine takes over. I want more days where I do things intentionally and fewer where I just shuffle through my routine. 

6. Community. Our department has been going through a rough spot lately. I think it was prompted by a combination of new blood and the disappointment that comes when expectations elevate ever so slightly. To be clear, new blood and elevated expectations aren’t bad in and of themselves, but sometimes our eagerness for change outpaces the capacity of institutions and colleagues to change. As a result, things get tense and community breaks down.

This year, I’m going to think more about community and how we can create a department, institution, classroom, and society that feels more committed to each other than to some kind of ideal, goal, or outcome. I’m not entirely sure what this will involve in practice, but I am very certain that it will involve listening more than I speak (never an easy thing for a middle-aged dude), not looking for problems to solve (and indulging my savior complex), but for opportunities to celebrate, and keeping my fucking head down. 

Happy New Year, everyone!

Writing Wednesday: A Kiln at Polis

As readers of this blog know, I’ve been using my winter research leave to work on a paper writing up an article that documents the pottery productive installation at Polis (ancient Arsinoe). It’s been a nice project after the toil of finishing a book. 

So far, I’ve shared a section on a lamp deposit and a levigation pool. This is a very-drafty section of this same article that describes the kiln and offers some very preliminary summative remarks. 

The Kiln

In 1990, excavations through the material that filled the levigation pool revealed the upper levels of the beehive kiln. These rubbly fill levels continue to appear to date to the Late Roman period with Cypriot Red Slip sherds (T06.1990.Level 47: CRSK3 [L47P1B40], CRS Body Sherds [L47P1B37]),Late Roman cook pots ([L47P1B13 and B18]) and what what appear to be lamp wasters (L47P1B19 and B20) reflecting how disturbed this entire area was in antiquity.

In 1991, excavations of the kiln began in earnest when the removal of the south wall exposed more of the upper levels of the kiln. The superimposition of the south wall and the levigation pool over the kiln allow us to date the kiln itself to no later than the 2nd century AD as the wall and the levigation pool must be no earlier than this date. As the kiln and levigation pool run atop the kiln, it is obvious that the kiln must have been out of use by the time of their construction. The base of the kiln is a meter below the the lowest level of the levigation pool.

The truncated shape of the kiln this indicates that the builders of the levigation pool removed the highest courses of the kiln to create a flat space of the pool and the south wall, whether contemporary with the pool or not, cut across the top of the leveled kiln. It seems probable that kiln builders cut the apsidal shaped kiln into the natural slope of the ground on the east side the ravine to that the basilica construction fill took pains to level. The preserved courses of the kiln were constructed of rough field stones and opened to the west. The presence of mud brick fragments in the kiln suggest that this material was used to either line the kiln’s stone walls or for its upper courses. This is consistent with the proposed construction methods of the kilns at Zygy-Petrera and Dhiorios (cf. Manning et al. 2000; Catling 1972, 29). The lowest levels of excavations in the kiln did not discern a distinction between the firing chamber and the lower combustion chamber. It may be that the excavators did not reach the lowest levels of the kiln, that the kiln was cleaned out after it fell out of use, or, as at Dhiorios, the fuel was burned inside the kiln amid the pots (Catling 1972, 31). Because the excavations occurred at the very end of the 1991 season, they were hastily recorded. The absence of significant quantities of kiln debris within the kiln suggest that the kiln was cleaned out after it went out of use.

The excavators excavated the interior of the kiln in a series of arbitrary levels. What is interesting is that most of the material in the upper levels of the kiln dates to the Hellenistic period. The lowest levels of the kiln, however, include a small number of Roman period sherds including fragments of Eastern Sigillata A and B and Cypriot Sigillata. The absence of any significant traces of Roman period material in the upper levels of kiln and the location of the kiln on the eastern side of north-south drainage suggests that kiln was filled deliberately. If the filling of the kiln was part of constructing a terrace or level area upon which to build the levigation pool, this would account for the reversed stratigraphy as the upper level of the kiln is filled with material cut from deeper below the slope of the ravines surface. The process of creating terraced surfaces along the slope of the ravine during the Roman period appears to have occurred on the western side of the drainage as well. Whatever accounts from this inverted stratigraphy, the Roman material deep in the kiln provides a terminus post quem for the abandonment of this structure. This date is largely consistent with the date of the fills associated with both South Wall phases and the material behind the tiles wall of the levigating pond.

Conclusion and Comparanda

The small number of excavated Roman pottery production sites on Cyprus make it challenging to identify clear comparanda both for the kiln and its associated features. The kiln appears to have had a beehive or conical shape with a diameter of around 1 m at the lowest excavated courses. This makes this kiln a good bit smaller than best preserved ancient kilns at Dhiorios, but approximately the same diameter and shape as the kiln documented eroding from the scarp at Zygi-Petrini in the Maroni valley on the south coast of the island. In other words, the size of the kiln is appropriate for ancient pottery manufacturing on Cyprus, but perhaps at a small scale or designed to fire table wares or lamps.

The proximity of the kiln to the later levigation pool and treading basin appear to be a common assemblage associated with kilns in the Levant. Sites such as Legio X Fretensis Kilnworks at Binyanei Ha’uma (Jerusalem), and Horbat ‘Uza, and Tel Yavne preserve some combination of kilns, pools, and treading surfaces used to process raw clay. While the levigation pools very in size and depth they are generally stone lined and sealed with water proof cement. The size of the pool at Polis, of course, remains indeterminant because its northern side was lost. That said, the preserve section of the pool finds parallels with the pools at the ceramic production site in the Levant. It suggests that this is not the site of small scale production but part of a larger complex that the limits of the excavation failed to reveal. The combination of these pools in close proximity to kilns, installation for wheels, and other features associated with ceramic production indicate a kind of integrated production site where clay is processed, refined, and fired into objects and vessels. The presence of clay deposits both in the proximity to Polis and in the broader region as well as a market for ceramic vessels make the area to the north of the city a suitable location for production at the scale assumed by this levigation pool.

The kiln is not contemporary with the levigation pool or other production activities in the area. The use of an area for ceramic manufacturing across multiple phases is consistent with the remains at Dhiorios where earlier kilns were buried beneath a so-called “Potter’s House.” Catling argues that the Potter’s House must not date much earlier than the 6th century and effectively assigns the early kilns, house, and later 7th-8th century kilns to a two century span of time. The relationship between the kiln and later levigation pool at Polis is likely chronologically closer than the phases at Dhiorios but nevertheless reflects the tendency for continuity of use in ceramic production areas. This likely has to do with the proximity of resources — clay and also fuel for kilns, the presence of a slope to support kiln walls, and location far enough from settlement to avoid subjecting residents to the smoke and commotion of the production area, but close enough to be convenient for the distribution of good and access to labor. Indeed, as the final section of this article will show, it appears that most Roman period activity in the area of E.F2 involved production of some description.

Surveying the Western Cycladic Islands

Over my winter research leave, I’ve had time to catch up on reading (and read new stuff as well!). I really enjoyed “A Regional Survey of the Uninhabited Islands of the Western Cyclades: The Small Cycladic Islands Project, 2021-2022” by Alex R. Knodell and colleagues which appeared in the most recent Hesperia 94.4 (2025).

The article is another publication from the Small Cycladic Islands Project (SCIP) and a kind of preliminary report (but not THAT kind of preliminary report). As per usual, if you want to dig into the full details that this report provides, it’s worth your time just to read it, but there were a few things that I very much appreciated in it that I’ll share here.

1. Later Roman to Medieval Activities. There has long been an assumption that something was going on in the islands. Near shore islands in, say, the Saronic or Corinthian Gulf, showed significant activities in the Late Roman period with churches, fortifications, cisterns, burials, and settlements. Archaeologists generally associated this activity with the Late Roman population boom which leads to expanded land use especially for grazing activities on the near shore islands. SCIP has shown that the assumption that by the 7th or 8th century activities on these “goat islands” ended, might be incorrect. Knodell and company argue that there is growing evidence that fortifications and towers on these islands served to monitor the surrounding seas and to protect surrounding settlements (often on other large islands or the mainland). This suggests continued activity on these islands into the Medieval period and their continued integration into life the Aegean littoral. 

2. Modern Trash. Over the past decade or so, there’s been a growing interest in seaborne modern trash. The circulation of rubber ducks and the documentation of sea borne trash in Iceland and Scandinavia, has opened doors to understanding the role of currents and winds in distributing evidence for modern activities on a global scale. The presence of modern trash on northern beaches in the SCIP study area reflects the prevailing winds and the discarded objects — from shotgun shells to the remains of festivals at the island churches — modern trash accumulates on these uninhabited islands as they lack the seamless working of contemporary infrastructure to remove it and are subjected to the agentless movement of the sea and winds.

3. Non-Settlement and Extractive Landscapes. Much of this paper emphasizes the use of these nearshore, uninhabited islands not as places of robust, long-term settlement activities. Indeed, many of these islands lack fresh water and arable land necessary for them to develop independent settlements (whatever that means in these circumstances) and instead become places of seasonal, situational, or short term extraction. The traces left by these activities become visible through the intensive practices of systematic pedestrian survey: lithic scatters, small assemblages of material suggestion short term occupation, and the subtle traces of shelters, terraces, animal pens, and other features. Survey archaeology has had a tendency to see artifact scatters as traces of settlement and to explain even the smallest assemblages as short term settlement in the landscape. We tend to ground this approach in formation process archaeology and argue that what we see on the surface is only a tiny percentage of the use assemblage. As a result, anything on the surface — even a few sherds — likely represents decades of activity in the past and this, for many of us, is the same as settlement. These islands, however, suggest another scenario. These assemblages might represent episodic activities over long stretches of time that never rise to the level of settlement and offer a valuable counterpoint to a larger tendency for settlement to overdetermine the nature of past landscapes  

4. Experiential Landscapes. The presence of monasteries and churches on these islands offers another useful reminder that islands were not simply nodes in productive landscapes or defined by their proximity to movement and risks, but also places that acquired distinct religious, experiential, and even mystical characteristics. (As a brief advertisement for myself, an article that I published many years ago argued that islands could replace deserts when Middle Byzantine hagiographers sought to project Early Christian aesthetic landscapes onto the Aegean). Monks sought islands for their isolation, mariners recognized churches as both navigational and spiritual guides, and communities return to islands for annual festivals celebrated for generations as much because the island is part of their lived environment as because of its remoteness. This tension between their proximity (and accessibility) and remoteness creates places as unique as the near desert of the Nile valley.  

5. Third Wave Survey. Finally, the work of the SCIP shows the potential of the so-called “third wave survey” projects in the Mediterranean. This article, despite its length, only touches on the edge of what third wave survey can be, but their use of LiDAR to identify and trace overgrown terraces, features associated with pastoralism, or even settlement represents an important — and logistically accessible — step forward for intensive pedestrian survey. Future projects will almost certainly combine this kind of advanced and once computationally intensive remote sensing technology with the modern traditional practice of walking fields and documenting ceramic and lithic artifacts on the surface. As the kids say: this is the way and it will be exciting to see how this project uses this technology not just for its own sake, but as a complement to intensive survey practice.