Excavations at Paphos in Cyprus, 1966.pdf

Excavations at Paphos in Cyprus, 1966

Author(s): A. H. S. Megaw

Source: Archaeological Reports, No. 13 (1966 - 1967), pp. 25-28

Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/580973

Accessed: 28/08/2009 06:30

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you

may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=hellenic .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the

scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that

promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend

access to Archaeological Reports.

http://www.jstor.org

ARCHAEOLOGICAL

REPORTS FOR 1966-67

EXCAVATIONSAT PAPHOS IN CYPRUS, 1966

Excavation of the Byzantine (and subsequently

Lusignan) castle on the 'Saranda Kolonnes' site was

resumed by the writer on behalf of the British School

at Athens in September I966, with the assistance of

A. W. Lawrence, R. J. C. Jamieson (architect) and

two students of the School, J. Hayes and G. Waywell.

The support of the Russell Trust and the Seven Pillars

of Wisdom Trust is gratefully acknowledged, as well

as the assistance of the Cyprus Antiquities Depart-

ment, which not only lent equipment but also carried

out certain structural restorations, without which

the excavations could not have continued.

The plan of the castle, which had been established

in its main lines in the 1957-59 campaigns for the

Antiquities Department (see AR 1958 33 fig. II),

has now been further clarified as a small residential

fortress within an outer wall (Fig. i). The remains of

the south wall of the castle proper and of its south-

west corner tower were exposed (the latter robbed to

its foundations) and the excavation of the apsidal

gate-tower was completed. More of the granite

columns used to reinforce

the walls were found; it is

to these that the site owes

(Fig. 3 scale / o); and since plain voussoirs

were also found here, at a lower level, the mould-

ed ones doubtless belong to the upper storey of

this tower. Here there may well have been a chapel,

for several blocks with remains of fresco decoration

were found in the neighbourhood.

For the rest of the piano nobile, reached by a staircase

on the south side of the court, there is little evidence.

The pairs of latrines within three of the ground floor

piers were evidently repeated in corresponding

piers on the upper floor, for the shafts descending

from them are preserved. Some of the fallen blocks

indicate that the piers themselves were, in the upper

storey, joined by walls to close the residential ac-

commodation from the open court. The curvature

of several blocks from the springings show that the

upper vaulting was of semicircular section, whereas

the vaulting of the undercrofts was segmental. One

moulded block found near the southwest corner, had

clearly fallen from the upper storey, where it doubt-

less had formed part of the enrichment of a doorway

..---.

t.--

PAPHOS- s5ARN KOLONNES -

967

its name.

The last of the nine

massive piers

that

ring

the

(

central

courtyard

were lo-

cated by extending

the

excavation

along

its north-

r----

ern side; but here, as in

much of the west range, floor

level was not reached. The

' L-

southwest

pier,

encumbered

by the collapsed remains of

the vaulting that sprang

from its west face, was par-

tially restored by the Anti-

.-.---.

quities Department during

the excavation. The rib

that carried the vaulting

between this pier and that

to the east was also recon-

structed (Fig. 2). Many

voussoirs from such ribs, of

simple rectangular section,

have been found. The posi-

tions of the ribs are not

in doubt and have been

indicated on the plan

(Fig. i); some of the corbels

that carried them remain^

in situ. Only one series of

moulded rib-voussoirs was |

found, in the gate-tower

FIG. I

A. H. S. MEGAW

'--------

.- - -

moved, whereasthe north-

west staircase was found

intact.

Mid-thirteenth century

pottery in the disturbed

levels of debris, which

reaches a height of 3 m.

above the floor, connects

the quarrying with the

reconstruction of Paphos

under the Lusignans.

From contexts undis-

turbed since the earth-

i i n S

quake much of the

i_tor equipment of the castle

in use in I222 has been

recovered. This includes

tI%ne coarse sgraffitoplates often

with dabs of green, slip-

reoir opainted jugs and a few

specimens of the proto-

maiolica wares of Apulia

and Sicily (Fig. 5). Scat-

tered fragments of By-

zantine twelfth-centurypottery and gilt glass, aswell as

contemporary coins, suggest that this is the Byzantine

castle which surrendered to the English Knights in

1191. Notable are the specimens of a thin ware with

sparse sgraffito decoration reinforced with yellow-

brown colour, which may have been current already

in the late twelfth century (Fig. 6). It has previously

been found in the Baths of Zeuxippus in Con-

stantinople, in South Russia, Corinth and elsewhere.

From historical sources it is known that the

Byzantines maintained a castle in Paphos in the

twelfth century, and that the entire town 'including

the castle' was destroyed by earthquake in I222,

while it was in Crusader hands. But there is no

record of its construction. A search for datable

deposits relating to the building of the castle did not

FIG. 2

(Fig. 4). Like the moulded rib-voussoirs they have

a Romanesque flavour, although the moulding

cannot be matched exactly.

In the undercrofts, wherever excavation was

continued to floor level, various unsuspected parti-

tions came to light; also a row of mangers against

the west wall, like those previously found in the east

range. The quarrying of the remains of the castle

which followed its destruction in the eathquake of

A.D. I222 was found to have been erratic. In the

southwest corner, where it had reached the floor,

the seven steps which had led up to the tower on this

FIG. 3

FIG. 4

----....

angle had all been re-

EXCAVATIONS

AT PAPHOS

FIG. 5

yield conclusive results. The foundation trench

along the north face of the northeast tower was

identified. It contained nothing recognisably later

The bulk of the numerous seventh-century Byzan-

tine coins found in the excavations no doubt relate to

that disaster, though one of later date suggests a

Byzantine presence after the Arabs withdrew,

probably in 656. The castle may have been first

constructed by the Byzantines at that stage, to protect

what was their most accessible fleet-base in the Island

against further Arab incursions; but, if so, it would

have been dismantled following the treaty of 688,

when the two parties agreed to demilitarize Cyprus

and divide its revenues. The coin evidence indicates

that from the early eighth century the site long lay

abandoned, while Paphos itself virtually disappears

from recorded history until the twelfth century.

Consequently, the material from the construction

contexts does not conflict with a building date after

the Byzantine recovery in 965, for it is arguable that

in the meantime the buildings which the Arabs

destroyed remained untenanted and that, if the

castle was built after that date, the construction fills

could still contain only seventh-century and earlier

material. There is indeed something to be said for

assigning the castle to the years around IIoo. This

is the time to which the earliest fragments of Byzantine

glazed pottery from the site belong, and the time when

Alexius I is known to have concerned himself with

the security of the Island. At this date the features

of the castle evocative of the Middle Ages would be

less surprising and the survival of antique elements

could be attributed to Byzantine conservatism.

In the Outer Ward, between the castle proper and

the outer wall, the original level has now been re-

established in the southern sector and in much of the

east and west sectors as well. This was made

possible by the previous reconstruction of the inner

face of the outer curtains to the appropriate height

to serve as a retaining wall; for, except at two points,

the curtains had been robbed and eroded well below

Outer Ward level. On the ample terraces thus

formed, the numerous blocks from the fallen super-

structure of the castle have been assembled for

further study. To provide

FIG. 6

than the seventh century. The same is true of a well

previously found outside the south wall, which the

builders of the castle must have encountered but of

which they made no use. The identifiable sherds

so far extracted from the mortar of its walls are

equally of seventh century or earlier date.

It is clear that the castle was erected on the ruins of

the city which the Arabs destroyed in A.D. 653/4.

a safer

repository

for

smaller fragments, the segmental

vault of the base-

A. H. S. MEGAW

FIG. 7

The position of the main outer gate has not been

established, but a postern has been located in the

flank of the pentagonal tower on the west side. This

leads on to a terrace over a tunnel antedating the

castle and passing under the curtain wall into the in-

terior. The tunnel had naturally been walled-up at the

outer end by the builders of the castle and filled with

stone and rubble. This filling was partly excavated

and found to contain column-drums and a capital from

a Graeco-Roman building and some pottery, again

none of it apparently later than the seventh century.

After the excavation of the remains of the outer

south wall and its central tower had been completed

by conventional methods, much of the debris ac-

cumulated in the ditch outside it was removed with

mechanical equipment. The tower and adjoining

curtain thus exposed rise at this point from a scarped

rock-face (Fig. 7). The floor of the ditch was not

reached but soundings elsewhere indicate that it was

cut to a depth of about 5 m. below ground level

within the wall. Above the rock, the curtain walls

are faced with dressed blocks set in a hard lime-

mortar, but the masonry of the towers is drafted to

leave bosses of varying projection. In this and other

respects the construction of the castle proper is

identical, save that the ashlar blocks of the nine piers

are bedded in gypsum.

Whether the castle was first built around I oo,

or earlier, and whether its 'medieval' features are

contemporary or relate to alterations and additions

(or even possibly to a major reconstruction) during

the 30 years of Crusader occupation, are questions

it is hoped to answer in a further campaign.

ment in the large east tower of the outer wall has

been reconstructed by the Antiquities Department.

During the 1966 campaign the outer wall was also

clarified at several points. The form of all the

towers has now been established; their variety is a

characteristic Byzantine feature. Little has yet been

seen of that on the northwest angle, since it has been

robbed to a great depth. In the curtain adjoining

it to the south was exposed the entrance to a stair

leading down to a sally-port, the sixth such to be

found (a seventh was started but never completed).

These were evidently judged unsafe by the last

occupants of the castle, for all were found walled-up.

The BritishSchoolat Athens

A. H. S. MEGAW

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: