Polis

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.

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.

Writing Wednesday: A Levigation Pool

As readers of this blog know, I’m leaning into this winter research leave by focusing on a short article describing the pottery manufacturing installation at the site of Polis (ancient Arsinoe) on Cyprus. Much of this is based on a 2024 ASOR paper which you can read here.

Last week, I wrote about an assemblage of second century lamps. This week, I’ve been working on the features associated with pottery production including a levigation pool, a possible treading basin, and ultimately an earlier kiln. Here’s what I managed to peck over the last few days. 

Oh! And happy holidays! 

The Levigation Pool

Excavations in both 1990 and 1991 revealed the top of a series of vertically arranged terracotta tiles arranged to form the coping of a pool. The excavators described this pool as a “fish pond,” but its proximity to a workshop area, size, and general characteristics make it more likely to have been a pool for the mixing of raw clay and water as part of the levigation process. The tiles that defined the pool appear to be in reuse and from monumental buildings. They seems have been set into a vertical bedding of clay which would have provided a degree of waterproofness and a layer of bright red clay covered the inner surface of the tiles. The interior layer of clay was either residue from the levigation process or, as plausibly, applied as a way to waterproof the sides of the pool. The floor of the pool seems to consist of a “hard, crusty, dried, clay-like earth floor” which perhaps represents the residue of the levigation process. The levigation pool itself consists of two perpendicular lines of coping tiles suggesting a pool that measured 5 meter east-west and perhaps 3 meter north-south. This estimate of the pools north-south dimensions depends upon location of a basin described in the notebook as a “pithos.” It appears, however, that this “pithos” was an open ceramic basin whose lowest level is at approximately the same elevation as the lowest parts of the pool’s coping tiles (around 18 m ASL). It seems reasonable to conclude that the basin and the pool are contemporary and that pool’s northern limits must fall before the area around the basin. Published examples of levigation pools from the Levant suggest that a pool of 15 sq. m would be relatively large, but not outside the range of dimensions for these features. Its size indicates the capacity to levigate large quantities of clay at the preliminary stage ceramic production process, and this suggests that it served a large production site. The basins to the north of the pool is a common feature at ceramic production sites in the Levant and should probably be associated with the treading of clay.

The main challenge in dating this pool and its associated basin is that the area where it stood was a busy one in the Roman and Late Roman periods. Not only was the basilica leveling fill and contemporary foundations cut through the area most likely disturbing the the western side of the levigation pool, but a wall preserved in two phases seems to have complicated and potentially disturbed the pool prior to the basilica construction. As a result, the overall stratigraphy of the area is compromised with only small areas of undisturbed soil behind the coping tiles of the pool preserving a small assemblage of datable material. The latest sherd in this material is a CS Form 30 dates to the 2nd century in the late series of Cypriot Sigillata form. There are also the thickened rims of contemporary globular cooking pots known from Paphos in this assemblage. Eastern Sigillata Form 4 and 30 appear to date to a century earlier as does a lagynos with parallel at Paphos (Hayes Series 5, no. 14). Material excavated from within the basin offers little additional evidence for date although the utility and cooking wares and color coated wares might date earlier than the material associated with the pool. Since the pool and the basin are almost certainly contemporary, the presence of earlier material in the basin itself reflects the generally confused stratigraphy of the area.

The pool stood near the intersection of two walls: one to the south and one to the east. The date and precise relationship between these walls and pool remains unclear. The wall immediately to the south of the levigation pool has three phases with the later two phases being seemingly Late Roman in date, but presumably before the leveling and filling of the area for the construction of the basilica. The earliest phase likely dates to either the same time or slightly later than the levigation pool, but the exact relationship between the wall and the pool remains opaque as does the relationship between the south wall and wall . The levigation pool and the wall both cut into levels that date to no earlier than the 2nd-century AD and contain CS12 and CS29 which generally belong to the later sequence of this type of pottery (L28). The wall that runs along the eastern side of the levigation pool is a series of superimposed walls similar to the south wall. The latest phase of this wall is Late Roman, but the earlier phase is likely contemporary with the Roman period road to the east and perhaps joints with the south wall. Our inability to distinguish the exact sequence of construction reflects the sometimes rapid adaptation of this area for new uses as production needs required.

Writing Wednesday: Contextualizing Lamps from Polis

Over the first week of my winter research leave, I’ve been pressing to prepare a draft of an article on our work at Polis. In particular, I’m looking to publish the results of our analysis of the area around a levigation pool, a kiln, and an assemblage of Roman period lamps. Much of this is based on a 2024 ASOR paper which you can read here.

One of the most interesting components of this article is an assemblage of second century lamps that appear to be stratigraphically unrelated to the levigation pool and kiln as features, but seemingly must have derived from the area. This provides a nice opportunity to explore the limits of archaeological epistemology. While the character of our data makes it impossible (or at least very unlikely) that I can conclusively link the lamp assemblage with the features associated with ceramic production, it is nevertheless highly plausible that these things have some connection.

Another little bonus is that we’re leaning into using Airtable not only to work collaboratively on our data, but also to do some basic analysis. This means we can share our work both with one another and in preliminary ways with readers here. Here is a sneak peek at our context pottery data from E.F2:S06 levels 13, 14, and 15. 

Here’s some of my preliminary analysis.

The Lamps

This consideration of the depositional processes active around the South Basilica presents context for a deposit of lamps found amid strata of predominantly Late Roman material immediately to the east of the basilica apse. Indeed, preponderance of lamps in a single area led the excavators to isolate this area and excavate it as a separate level (Level 14). In terms of stratigraphy, the lamp deposit (Level 14) was not distinct from the levels above it (Level 13) or below it (Level 15). As we have noted, excavators associated these levels with the basilica leveling fill potentially disturbed by lowest course of the apse foundations. The material in Levels 13, 14, and 15, in general dated to no earlier than the Hellenistic period and no later than the Late Roman. Within that chronological range, the material was heterogeneous with the exception of the lamp deposit.

This assemblage produced over 50 lamp fragments and a number of complete lamps. The lamps were largely two forms: Q2460 and Q2465 from Bailey’s 1975 British Museum catalogue; these are also known as Loeschcke Type V lamps. These lamps have a flat base, a small ring handle and volutes on either side of a short spout. Q2460 has a blank disk and undecorated shoulder whereas Q2465 features a peacock on a pomegranate bough and ovules on the shoulder. Bailey associates these lamp forms in the British Museum with the Kitchener/Hake excavations at either Salamis or Kourion and Oziol notes similar lamps from the French excavations from Salamis. They both date these lamps on stylistic grounds to the first half of the second century AD. This makes them loosely contemporary with the residual Roman period material found in the basilica leveling fills and, as we will demonstrate below, the material associated with the pottery manufacturing activity in the area.

It is not just the quantity of lamps concentrated in one depositional context, but the consistency of the lamps appearing in this context that set them apart from lamps identified elsewhere at Polis and in the area of E.F2 specifically. In fact, the types of lamps recovered from the fill over the kiln were exceedingly rare elsewhere in E.F2 with only one example of Q2460 (LA340) and Q2465 (LA485) type lamps appearing elsewhere. More than that, many of the lamps recovered from the fill over the kiln showed no signs of use or blackening around the wick hole. They also included several generations from the same mould as is evident in the deteriorating sharpness of the peacock on the bough. The assemblage of lamps from this assemblage is also remarkably homogeneous compared to fragments of lamps found elsewhere in E.F2. There are two contexts of particular note that produced a large number of inventoried fragments of lamps. Trench H10 to the south of the basilica produce a large number of very small lamp fragments with many being undiagnostic or dating to the Classical-Hellenistic period. There were no complete lamps. Trench M10 to the east of H10 produced numerous fragments of a handful of Roman period lamps including a well preserved fragment of a pornographic lamp (LA796). Like the lamps recovered from trench H10, however, the fragments produced few examples of complete lamps and these complete lamps appeared in relatively wide range for forms. In short, the other areas of E.F2 where excavators encountered a large number of lamp fragments (and complete lamps) produced more diverse and fragmentary assemblages of material that showed so no signs of the integrity of the S06 deposit.

Levels 13, 14, and 15 produced material that was contemporary with the lamp deposit. In particular, these levels produced a substantial number of diagnostic Cypriot Sigillata forms with a clear bias toward the so-called “Late Series” of CS dating to the later 1st through 2nd century. These included forms P11 and P29 which appear in predominantly 2nd century contexts at the Paphos Agora (Kajzer and Marzec 2020, 252) as well as other late forms in P30 and P41 dated by Hayes to the 2nd century (Lund CPSP; Hayes 1985f, Hayes 1991) and a P12 bowl which tends toward the 2nd century. Along with these 2nd century forms are earlier and more common forms P22 and P28 and a rare form P34. This material appeared alongside cooking wares in forms that Rowe has associated with Western Cypriot manufacture and dates to deposits in the 2nd century. This material complements the general impression left by the fine wares. While the samples are small, the percentage of ESA in these level is lower than elsewhere across E.F2 and while CS percentages remain similar, the prevalence of late forms suggests that the Roman period material in these levels may well reflect the presence of a 2nd century context amid the otherwise much later leveling fill. This is consistent with the presence of a lamp assemblage which Bailey has dated to between 50 and 150 AD. In fact, it seems plausible to date the lamps to the 2nd-century component of these deposits recognizing that the residual material forms a lens in an otherwise later deposit.

Winter Writing Wednesday

Last week, I was able to send my book manuscript to my publisher for review. This means that my book now has a (tentative) title: Archaeology, Photography, Oil: Workforce Housing in the Bakken. This means that I now have some time to work on other projects. For example, yesterday, I did pre-production work on most of the poetry for NDQ. I finished up some letters of recommendation, and I’m working on two books that are in production at my press. And, of course, there is grading. Always grading.

I am committed to making this winter productive even as the dust settles on the fall semester (amid the dying gasps of a winter storm). I have three projects that I really want to complete.

1. A Kiln at Ancient Arsinoe. In 2023 and 2024, we completed work documenting the kiln and surroundings in the area of E.F2 at Polis. We gave a paper on this at the 2024 ASOR conference. The kiln dates to the Roman period and was part of a multiphase installation that seems to have focused on ceramic production. The article, which we plan to submit to BASOR, will document these features and introduce the related ceramic assemblage. In particular, we’ll propose that a group of lamps found nearby might be the product of the ceramic installation. This assemblage of lamps, including several from the same mould and several showing no signs of use, is unusual at Polis because unlike the lamp fragments found elsewhere at the site, there is a remarkable level of consistency in the assemblage found near the kiln installation. The most vexing thing is that there is no clear stratigraphic (or depositional) relationship between the lamp assemblage and the ceramic production installations. This also is the fun and challenging part of this article.

2. Midwestern Modernism and the Regional Magazine: The First 23 volumes of North Dakota Quarterly (1910-1933). This is my major writing project of the new year and for a volume called the Edinburgh Companion to the Regional Magazine. I’m incredibly excited to write this piece and I am intrigued by the editorial team’s decision to host not only a writing day, but also some lightening presentations from the contributors. This is a brilliant way not only to ensure that we are writing, but also that our contributions will coalesce (potentially) around some key themes. Be prepared to see more on this in the coming months!

Here’s the current abstract:

Founded in 1910 at the University of North Dakota, North Dakota Quarterly represented a new type of regional magazine at the intersection of the expansion of higher education into middle of the American continent and new currents modernist thought—sometimes referred to as “Midwestern Modernism.” This movement developed across literature, art, architecture, and education and found fertile ground in turn-of-the-century “little magazines” which celebrated regional voices in an accessible style and at a modest price. While the magazine initially featured the work of University of North Dakota faculty, it soon expanded beyond campus voices with contributions of appeal to a regional audience. The juxtaposition of regional with national (and even global) issues in its pages reflected the growing sense of cosmopolitanism among Quarterly‘s authors and audience. Ironically the global engagement that played out across its pages ultimately paused its publication in 1933 as a result of university budget cuts during the Great Depression. This contribution looks to the first two decades of the Quarterly as a window into “Midwestern Modernism” and the contemporary development of regional magazines across the early-20th century American Midwest.

3. Survey Archaeology and Modern Greece. My colleague Nota Pantzou (University of Patras) and I are slowing bringing together an edited volume on the archaeology of contemporary Greece. This volume will include a paper that I co-authored with Grace Erny and Dimitri Nakassis at the Patras conference. Our paper compares the sites of Lakka Skoutara in the southeastern Corinthia and Chelmis in the western Argolid. The former can now bring in data published by the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey on Open Context. 

Since my paper included a good many references to work by other scholars (and our work in these areas), it should not be particularly complicated to expand it to 5,000 or 6,000 words.

Writing Wednesday: Kilns, NDQ, and Finishing a Book

One of my not-so-secret habits is that I write three days a week in a little notebook. The notebook isn’t where I write my most personal thoughts (I learned a long time ago that deeply personal thoughts are more or less a waste of my scant supply of cognition), but rather a secret blog where I write about things that I I’m working on BEFORE I’m working on them.

I’m going to pull back the curtain a bit and show you two things from my notebook (and then admit that I need to finish my #@$% book).

Thing the First

For anyone following this blog, you know that I should be working more on stuff from Polis this fall than I have been. Like a student who tries to make up for all the missed readings and assignments in the final week of the semester, I’m going to invest in Polis this December. Because of some (un?)expected delays in moving our larger book length publications forward, I am going to write a traditional archaeological article on the kiln area in the area of E.F2 at Polis.

For those in need of a refresher, we gave a paper last year at ASOR on this area and the kiln. The area features three interesting features. First, there is the beehive shaped kiln which appears to have been cut into the sloping sides of a ravine through the area. Second, the kiln appears to have been filled in perhaps as part of a terracing operation, and on the resulting level terrace is a tile lined levigation pool and a ceramic workshop. Finally, from levels above the levigation pool perhaps associated with the leveling fill of the later Early Christian basilica at the site, there was a deposit of earlier Roman lamp fragments. What made these fragments unusual is that they were almost all from a single type of lamp and many were from the same mould. Moreover, some of them were unused. The distinctive and discrete character of this lamp assemblage become more obvious when compared to lamp fragments across the area which represent far more variation and diversity than those found in the trench associated with the kiln and levigation pool. This hints that the lamps found in the basilica leveling fills might be from a context where we would expect a uniformity of lamp types such as a context associated with production.

My plan is to write this to submit to BASOR in the spring. BASOR has always been on my bucket list of journals and it would be fun to see something published there after serving so many years on the ASOR Committee on Publications.

Thing the Second

I’m getting pretty excited to formulate an argument for a short piece that I’m writing on the early history of NDQ. Rather than being a deep dive in the UND archives (which would be a good idea at some point), this article will look to situate NDQ in history of regional “little magazines.” My two main points of comparison will be The Midland and Frontier both of which are loosely contemporary with NDQ, but decidedly more grounded in modernism and literature rather than the more progressive leaning of the Quarterly.

Here two major secondary works will be my touchstones. Robert Dorman’s Revolt of the Provinces: The Regionalist Movement in America, 1920-1945 (1993) and Molly Rozum’s Grasslands Grown: Creating Place on the U. S. Northern Plains and Canadian Prairies (2021). Both books trace the development of particular regionalist tendencies in the early 20th century (with Rozum’s book more deeply rooted in the experience of the Northern Plains). These regionalist tendencies became a space to negotiate the optimism associated with the rapid pace of cosmopolitan modernization (at the dawn of petromodernity and in the shadow of the 1893 World’s Fair) and concerns associated with this speed of the modern world and its tendency to fragment, shatter, and homogenize all experiences before its relentless pace. In short, regionalism became a key arena for  modernization and its discontents to play out. This feels to me like an exciting article to write and is my winter writing project.

Thing the Third

Then, there’s reality. I’m neck deep in a book project and while these other projects are simmering. As much as I work to remind myself that I should shoot the wolf closest to the sled, my attention it dragged elsewhere.

That said, I’ve re-read the first chapter and made some solid revisions to it. Chapter two beckons and as I dig deeper into the book and writing the little summative introductions to each chapter has proven to be quite rewarding. Maybe next week, I’ll share some of them with you as I gain momentum toward my November deadline. For now, I have to keep the distant wolves at bay through my dedication to dissuading the closest wolf from having me for dinner.

Two Article Thursday: Fracking and the Climate in Late Antiquity

I spent some time between classes reading a couple articles that felt relevant to my current research (and interests). It seemed reasonable to combine them into a Two Article Thursday.

Article the First

I read with great interest Gabe Eckhouse’s and Ewan Gibbs’s, “Two Late Imperial Oil Booms: A comparison of the constrained national energy imaginaries of the UK’s North Sea and US hydraulic fracturing” in Geoforum (2025). It outlined the relationship between imperialism and oil in the late 20th and early 21st century. Framed as a response to the post-colonial (and decolonial) nature of OPEC in the 1970s, both the UK and the US looked to domestic oil production as a way to assert their long-standing national aspirations of influence on a global scale. In the UK this involved hugely expensive oil plays in the North Sea; in the US, this involved the use of fracking to unlock formerly “tight” oil reserves.

The role that fracking played in my research in the Bakken caught my attention. One of the supporting arguments advanced by the authors is the fracking in shale oil fields such as the Bakken, as compared the North Sea oil (which is a more conventional oil field), produces wells that are often short lived meaning that drilling has to occur constantly to produce profitability. As a result, companies that seek to profit from fracking require a constant flow of capital to fund new wells. This often results in these companies constantly renegotiating debt. When oil prices drop, the short term productivity of fracked wells mean that companies often pause drilling of new wells and this intermittent activity requires the rapid movement of capital and labor into and out of these tight oil plays. The Bakken boom then is not merely another oil boom, but a distinctive kind of boom promoted by the distinctive character of both the geology and the financial mechanisms required to extract oil from these oil fields.

It is interesting that the authors did not develop a bit more the hypermasculine nationalism that emerged among workers (and companies) involved in fracking booms. If Late Imperialism is manifest in the peddling of influence backed by financial and energy resources, I would also contend that it “late nationalism” binds the workers in certain sectors more closely to nationalist rhetoric. These workers are not only laboring in a volatile, dangerous, and sometimes highly remunerative industry, but also advancing nationalist goals. As such, corporate owned work force housing sites are festooned with nationalist and patriotic images and workers wear company gear with the American flag patches evocative of the military. Moreover, many of the same companies involved in the Bakken, for example, also were involved in US military activities abroad from Halliburton (and their subsidiary KBR) who built military bases and provided advanced logistics to companies that specialized in workforce and military housing. In other words, the entanglement of the oil industry in national operations goes well beyond the influence made possible through domestic energy production and extends to the very fabric (literally) of the emergent industries.

Article the Second

I was pretty interested to read Haggai Olshanetsky and Lev Cosijns 2024 article in Klio titled “Challenging the Significance of the LALIA and the Justinianic Plague: A Reanalysis of the Archaeological Record.” It argues that our shifting ceramic chronologies have the impact of decoupling settlement contractions and economic decline from the mid-sixth-century catastrophes associated with the Justinianic plague and Late Antique Little Ice Age.

The start by arguing that the dating for the end of many sites in the Negev desert is a half century too early causing archaeologists to associate their demise to demographic shifts caused by the Justinianic plague. They contend that the LALIA would have likely made marginal lands such as the Negev more productive than during the hotter and drier conditions of the region during their climate optimum. In other words, the settlement pattern in this region seem to neither confirm chronologically to the Justinianic plague (at least during its initial outbreak) nor the productive potential of these areas during the LALIA. Indeed, ceramic evidence from middens (especially LR4 and LR5 amphora sherds) and recalibrated C14 dates tend to reinforce the continued prosperity of these regions into the 7th century when the Persian and then Islamic invasions disrupted the region’s settlement and economy.

With this established, the authors expand the scope of their analysis and demonstrate how surveys elsewhere in Israel, in Greece, and in Cyprus demonstrate similar trends. Shipwreck data, at least from the Eastern Mediterranean appears to confirm the on going prosperity and connectivity of the region in the early or even mid-7th century.  For the authors, this data provides a powerful and expansive counterpoint to the growing chorus of work looking to associate the weakening of the Roman world to mid-6th century plague and climate change.

While this kind of research is ongoing and involves critically reexamining older projects and the assumptions upon which their chronologies and arguments rest. It also involves testing existing and developing hypotheses with new excavations and survey. For example, understanding how the plague may have impacted material conditions among those who survived is a classic question among scholars of the Medieval bubonic plague and vital to attempting to connect archaeological evidence to social conditions.

I like to imagine that our work at Polis on Cyprus strives to move the needle in this debate, by pushing ever later the prosperity and connectivity of this community in the 7th and even early 8th century. 

Polis Pottery

We were excited to read the recent article by Christiana Kelepeshi and Jelena Živković in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences titled “Reassembling the pieces, reassessing the picture: an analytical study of medieval pottery (mid. twelfth–sixteenth c.) from Polis Chrysochous, Cyprus.” The article is a study of 50 sherds sampled from the area of E.G0 at Cyprus and primarily associated with a domestic structure to the north of the so-called “North Basilica.”

The sherds represented a range of common types of pottery present at the site: Incised Sgraffito Ware, Brown and Green Sgraffito Ware, Plain-Incised Sgraffito Ware, Slip-Painted Ware, and Green and Brown Painted Ware as well as various coarse and cooking wares. This analysis produced for types of fabrics with the authors named 1, 2, 3, and 4. 

Fabric 1 comes, predictably, from the Paphos region and Fabric 2 derives from the area around Lapithos along the northern coast of Cyprus. Both of these are known ceramic production sites in the Medieval period and locates Polis at the intersection of two significant areas of ceramic distribution. Fabric 3 is an Aegean ware fabric present in tables wares at Polis and Fabric 4 is a coarse ware which may be local or derived from somewhere in the central part of the island with access to the Troodos mountains.

In some ways, the results of this analysis is not particular surprising. From the 12th to 16th century, we would expect the inhabitants of Polis to buy pottery from local producers and the broader Aegean world. The known workshops at Paphos and Lapithos invariably occupied a significant share of the market for table wares. Coarse and cooking wares might be either more local to Polis in manufacture or come to the island as transport or specialized vessels associated with other goods.

Over the next few years, we have plans to extend our work at the site of Polis into the Medieval period. Much of this will focus on dating the Medieval phases of the two basilica style churches at the site. The churches at Polis — and the city itself (ancient Arsinoe) — are particularly interesting because they continued to be adapted and used for over 500 years. 

Summer Work at Polis: The 1983 Survey

My summer research leave has been busy and I’m about a week behind at producing anything substantive from my work. That said, I have managed to put together a descriptive report on the 1983 survey conducted by the Princeton Cyprus Expedition in the region of Polis.

This was an extensive type survey focused largely on the fields immediately surrounding the village and with an interest in identifying the most productive area for excavation. Since this survey had as its goal exploration and a short shelf life ending at excavation, the documentation was no where near as rigorous as a larger scale intensive pedestrian survey.

That said, we’re been able to extract some useful information from the survey. For example, it seems that the Iron Age settlement (Marion) was centered to the east of the modern village and the later Hellenistic to Late Roman settlement (Arsinoe). Analyzing all the pottery collected from the survey allowed us to compare it to the material from the excavation of the area E.F2 (around the South Basilica). This produced some unexpected results. For example, despite the much smaller quantity of material from the survey, it produced 3 African Red Slip form 104 rims whereas the excavation (with 10x as much pottery much of it being Late Roman in date) only produced 1 rim of this imported form. In general, it seems that the survey brought in more imported pottery than the excavation. This was a bit unexpected while at the same time realizing that small samples will naturally show greater variation than larger ones. 

If you’re interested in seeing what the survey recovered, you can check out our working data table here. There’s a link to our report below the map!

You can download our preliminary report here.

Abandoned Villages on Cyprus

On my long flight home, I read Andrea Villani’s “Vanishing Villages: Exploring Habitation and Abandonment in the Dhiarizos Valley, Cyprus, and Surrounding Areas,” in the International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2025). The article studies the abandoned villages in the Dhiarizos Valley in the Paphos districted. Villani does this through field work, of course, but also through careful study of aerial photos and maps, census data, and earlier studies of vernacular architecture. Of particular note is the PRIO project website which collects information on the displacement of Greek and Turkish Cypriots after the 1974 war. I’ve been deeply curious about the situation in the Chrysochou valley around the village of Polis in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The PRIO project website collects information no the villages of Polis, Chrysochou, Androlikou, Evretou, Meladeia, Melandra, Makounta, Myrimikoph, Gialia, Neo Chorio, Prodromi, Pelathousa, Ay. Isodoros, Tremythousa, and other predominantly Turkish-Cypriot settlements in the region.

Anyone who has spent any time in the Cypriot countryside knows that it is laced with abandoned villages. The reasons for the abandonment varied, but the intercommunal violence of the 1950s and the 1974 war represent major episodes of settlement reorganization which left numerous villages abandoned in the western part of the island. There were other opportunities for abandonment, of course, including in the Dhiarizos valley, earthquakes and dangers of landslides and slips. One of the more interesting observations offered by Villani is that the cause of abandonment not only impacts what was left at the site, but also subsequently post-abandonment formation processes. The removal of doors, windows, and roof tiles, for example, from a village abandoned because of the risk of landslips tends to accelerate the decay of the structures. Buildings abandoned as a result of the 1974 war tended to be more intact at the time of abandonment because their owners didn’t have the opportunity to come back and remove parts of the build that still had value. This ensured that many of these structures remained standing longer. 

Villani was also attentive to the materials used in the abandoned villages and how these impacted site formation. While it is widely known that mud brick will deteriorate if not maintained over a period of 50-70 years, the interplay of mud-brick, cinder blocks, cement roofs, and other building materials creates more complex processes. The tendency for heavy cement roofs which became common in mid-century Cyprus to collapse onto the floors of houses in ways that made them inaccessible (and therefore difficult to study) further impacts how we understand abandonment. Villani notes that the re-use of buildings by shepherds, for example. Shepherds tended to abandon the buildings used to house sheep or goats when they became filled with dung and other detritus. This suggests a strategy that either recognized an abundance of abandoned buildings or saw their opportunism as a short term strategy. 

Finally, it was particularly interesting to compare the PRIO data to the Kitchener maps from 1882 for the Chrysochou Valley. Over the last 10 years or so, I’ve been so immersed in the nitty gritty from the Princeton excavations that I’ve lost a bit of perspective on the larger region. I knew, of course, that many of the villages in the region were either Turkish Cypriot or had large Turkish-Cypriot populations and as a result were abandoned.