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Chalcolithic Cyprus

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c 1991 by the American Schools of Oriental Research Published in association with the J. Paul Getty Museum 17985 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, California 90265-5799 (213 ) 459-7611 Mailing address: P.O. Box 2112 Santa Monica, California 90406-2112 The articles in this volume are based on papers presented at a symposium held at the J. Paul Getty Museum, February 22-24, 1990. ISBN 0-89236-207-3 Symposium: Chalcolithic Cyprus Foreword rticles published here comprise a combined traded in the Chalcolithic period. Other papers volume of the Bulletin of the American looked more broadly at the art and artifacts of the A Schools of Oriental Research, Numbers period and at possible contacts between Cyprus, 282/283, May/August 1991. The papers will also Anatolia, and other areas of the eastern Mediter- appear in identical format but under a separate ranean. More was discussed and clarified about cover as a Getty Museum publication. Chalcolithic Cyprus in those three days—thanks to These articles originated as papers presented at the speakers as well as the other participants at the the Getty Museum in February 1990 during a three- symposium—than is presented in the selection of day symposium on Chalcolithic Cyprus. The event papers published here. Excavations during the was a cooperative project of the Museum and the past few years on Cyprus have provided new ma- Department of Antiquities of the Republic of terial and have made important contributions to Cyprus. our understanding of the Chalcolithic period. The The symposium and a concurrent exhibition of symposium provided an opportunity for archaeolo- Chalcolithic material from the Cyprus Museum, gists excavating on Cyprus, and many other schol- Cyprus Before the Bronze Age, were first suggested ars, to consider those finds and the questions they by Dr. Vassos Karageorghis in 1987, while he was provoke. director of the Cyprus Department of Antiquities. We are grateful to each of the speakers of the Working together with Dr. Marion True, Curator symposium. We owe particular thanks to Marion of Antiquities at the Getty Museum, he proposed True and Vassos Karageorghis for their inspiration an international meeting of scholars to cover a wide and leadership. Thanks are due also to the staff of range of topics on the material remains of Chalco- the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus, the staff lithic Cyprus and their interpretation. Sites such as of the Antiquities Department and Publications the Vasilikos Valley and Kissonerga-Mosphilia, Department of the Getty Museum, and to James W. which are yielding important new information for Flanagan and the editorial staff of the Bulletin prehistoric Cyprus, were presented by their excava- of the American Schools of Oriental Research, tors. Other papers examined the objects discovered who together made the exhibition, symposium, and in controlled excavations in an attempt better to publication possible. understand the industries, social structures, and religious beliefs of Chalcolithic Cyprus. The topics John Walsh Athanasios Papageorghiou ranged from stone tools to floral and faunal re- Director Director mains, and from metals and metallurgy to picrolite, J. Paul Getty Department of Antiquities, a stone highly valued for sculpture and widely Museum Cyprus Contents IAN A. TODD: The Vasilikos Valley and the Chalcolithic Period in Cyprus 3 EDGAR PELTENBURG: Kissonerga-Mosphilia: A Major Chalcolithic Site in Cyprus 17 NOËL H. GALE: Metals and Metallurgy in the Chalcolithic Period .... 37 PAUL CROFT: Man and Beast in Chalcolithic Cyprus 63 DIANE L. BOLGER: The Evolution of the Chalcolithic Painted Style ... 81 CAROLYN ELLIOTT: Rock Sources of Ground Stone Tools of the Chalcolithic Period in Cyprus 95 EDGAR PELTENBURG: Local Exchange in Prehistoric Cyprus: An Initial Assessment of Picrolite 107 C. XENOPHONTOS: Picrolite, Its Nature, Provenance, and Possible Distribution Patterns in the Chalcolithic Period of Cyprus 127 LUCIA VAGNETTI: Stone Sculpture in Chalcolithic Cyprus 139 ELIZABETH GORING: Pottery Figurines: The Development of a Coroplastic Art in Chalcolithic Cyprus 153 V. KARAGEORGHIS: A Terracotta Pendant from Kalavassos-Ayious ... 163 MACHTELD J. MELLINK: Anatolian Contacts with Chalcolithic Cyprus 167 The Vasilikos Valley and the Chalcolithic Period in Cyprus IAN A. TODD Kalavasos, Larnaca, Cyprus Information concerning the Chalcolithic occupation of the Vasilikos valley has been derived principally from excavations at Kalavasos-Ayious and from the field survey of the valley. Limited data were also obtained by excavation at Kalavasos- Tenta. At Ayious no standing structures were found, only a series of pits of varied shapes, sizes, and purposes. The site probably represents a settlement of lightly built huts, most traces of which have been lost through erosion. A complex of pits and associated subterranean tunnels is of uncertain purpose. Small pits were also found in the Tenta excavations. The field survey revealed Early, Late, and probably Middle Chalcolithic sites in most of the valley. The density of settlements is not great, but uncertainty exists concerning the attribution of certain pottery types to a specific phase. The Chalcolithic occupation of the valley began as early as in western Cyprus, but the continuity of occupation throughout the period remains to be established. INTRODUCTION Age cemetery within Kalavasos village (Todd 1986) and at the Late Bronze Age town site of Kalavasos- he significance of the Vasilikos valley for Ayios Dhimitrios (South 1988). There have also the study of the earlier prehistory of Cyprus been several small rescue excavations. Excavations T has been apparent since Dikaios' small-scale have also been started recently by an associated pioneering excavations in the Kalavasos area in the project directed by McClellan and Rautman at the 1940s. Excavations were undertaken at the two Late Roman site of Kalavasos-Kopetra, south of adjacent sites of Kalavasos-Kokkinoyia and Pam- Kalavasos. An archaeological field survey of the boules (Dikaios 1962: 106-12, 133-40) and at the valley, utilizing a transect sampling procedure, has nearby, predominantly Aceramic Neolithic site of now been completed from the area of the Kalavasos Kalavasos-Tenta.1 The existence of several other copper mines north of the village down to the sites was also noted in the files of the Department coast. The overall aim of the project was (and of Antiquities of Cyprus at that time. Stanley Price remains) the archaeological study of the Vasilikos visited the Kalavasos area sites during his research valley as a whole in all its prehistoric phases. The on the early prehistoric settlement of the island chronological span of the field survey was extended (Stanley Price 1979: 125-27), but it was not until through historic times until the present (Todd 1976 that a long-term, multidisciplinary project 1989). Complete surface collection of artifacts was was mounted in the Kalavasos area. The project also undertaken at several sites. began field operations in 1976, and has continued At the start of the present fieldwork program in thus far over 14 summer seasons. 1976, knowledge of the Chalcolithic period in the The aims and development of the Vasilikos Valley Vasilikos valley was restricted to the enigmatic pits Project (hereafter V.V.P.) have been outlined pre- excavated by Dikaios at Kokkinoyia and Pambou- viously (Todd 1987). The chronological scope of les; these were published by Dikaios (1962) as the fieldwork comprises all prehistoric phases. Kalavasos Sites A and B. The pits were interpreted Excavations have so far been undertaken at the as pit-dwellings; those at Kokkinoyia were dated Aceramic Neolithic and Ceramic Neolithic/Early to the Ceramic Neolithic ("Neolithic II") and those Chalcolithic site of Kalavasos-Tenta, at Early Chal- at Pamboules to the Early Chalcolithic ("Chal- colithic Kalavasos-Ayious, at the Middle Bronze colithic I") (Dikaios 1962: 204, table). No standing 3 4 IAN A. TODD BASOR 282/283 above-ground structures were known from Chal- The existence of a site at Ayious was first re- colithic contexts in the valley, although Dikaios ported in the files of the Department of Antiquities had earlier excavated such structures elsewhere at of Cyprus in 1948 and 1949. Stanley Price visited it Erimi-Pamboules (Dikaios 1936). One of the aims in 1972 (1979: 125-26); the staff of the V.V.P. of the present project was, therefore, to determine examined it briefly in the summer of 1976 and whether the pits did in fact serve as subterranean provisionally dated it to the Chalcolithic (Todd dwellings and whether or not above-ground struc- 1977: 28). During the summer of 1978 a contour tures existed in the valley in the Chalcolithic period. plan was made of the site, a grid of 10 m squares Information pertaining to the nature of life in was established, and a surface collection of artifacts the Chalcolithic period in the Vasilikos valley has was made covering both the top of the site and the been derived in recent years from several sources. eroded western and southern slopes. Surface exami- The small amount of excavated post-Aceramic Neo- nation of the site indicated that excavation might lithic deposits at Tenta proved upon ceramic analy- well provide significant data pertinent to the solu- sis to date mainly to the Early Chalcolithic period tion of the problems posed by Dikaios' excavations rather than the Ceramic Neolithic as previously at Kokkinoyia and Pamboules only a short dis- thought; only the deposits in the lower levels of the tance south. Preliminary ceramic analysis of the small sounding in Square O 16 B can be attributed surface pottery indicated that the closest affinities to the Ceramic Neolithic. The rescue excavations of the Ayious material were Chalcolithic (Krom- at Ayious have, however, yielded more knowledge holz 1981). of the earliest phase of the Chalcolithic in the By the early autumn of 1978 it had become valley. The later part of the Chalcolithic is not yet apparent that Ayious lay in the proposed line of represented in any of the excavated sites.
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