Dear friends and supporters of CAARI,

It is a stressful and difficult time for everyone right now and I hope that each of you is staying safe and getting on with your life as best you can. Cyprus is now operating under strict measures. We text a dedicated number with our ID and reason for going out for a necessary purpose, non-essential shops are shut, all gatherings are prohibited, and there is a curfew from 9pm-6am. CAARI has been closed to the public since mid-March, complying with the stance taken by other educational and research facilities in order to protect the wellbeing of our staff and researchers. We hope that the measures undertaken by the government of Cyprus to contain Covid-19 will bear positive results. Here we are thankfully all doing well so far. CAARI staff are working from home and we have some long-term residents who are staying alone at CAARI, looking after themselves and the facility. If you'd like to get in touch with us, just to say hello if you're feeling isolated, please use the contact details at caari.org.

It seems a long time ago now but I can give you an update on the earlier part of our 2020 program. We were delighted to open 2020 with a lecture in January from CAARI Vice-President Annemarie Weyl Carr. We hosted a packed house to hear her speak on 'Hell in the Sweet Land: Reflections on Last Judgments in Latin-ruled Cyprus'. No one brings Byzantine paintings to life as Annemarie does and a lively discussion continued into the reception after the lecture. Our second lecture, in February, was given by one of our long-term graduate student residents, Cassandra Donnelly. Cassie gave us insight into her doctoral research with a lecture on 'Cypro-Minoan Potmarks, between Writing and Marking in the Late Bronze Cyprus'. Again, this drew a great audience as so many of us are intrigued by the undeciphered Cypro-Minoan script. Cassie's work tracking the forms and usage of these signs in tandem with an interrogation of their archaeological context is going to be a major contribution to our understanding of Bronze Age writing systems. We were sorry that we had to cancel our March lecture, by another of our long-term resident researchers, Dr. Hannah Mönninghoff of the University of Bern. We very much hope to be able to reschedule Hannah's lecture, entitled 'Across the Sea - Cypriot Material Culture in Iron Age Cilicia'.

It is very disappointing that after all the eager preparatory work by the participants and the organiser, Dr. Anna Spyrou, we have also had to cancel our May 15-16 conference , 'Plants, Animals And People In The Eastern Mediterranean: Diachronic And Interdisciplinary Approaches To Consumption'. In addition to the Saturday papers, a feast of traditional Cypriot food was lined up, including 'pittes tis satjis' (pan-fried flat breads) made by our very own Vathoulla. We're aiming to reschedule for the same time next year as, all being well, the autumn here is already packed with events. This includes the conference that CAARI is holding in collaboration with the British Museum and the Council for British Research in the Levant, 6-7 November: 'Empire and excavation: critical perspectives on archaeology in British-period Cyprus, 1878-1960'. The deadline for the call for papers has been extended as we appreciate that people are having a hard time concentrating right now so please do see our website and submit a paper if this topic aligns with your research.

At this time of the year, the CAARI library and residence would normally be filled with students and scholars from Cyprus and abroad, studying for exams, researching for their dissertations or gearing up for the spring and summer excavation seasons. As well as missing our dear friends very much, CAARI is now losing a great deal of income. If you find yourself still in a stable situation and are able to think of CAARI at this time, please see the call below. We remain optimistic and hopeful that the world situation will improve and that we can resume our lives before too long.

CAARI fellows past, present and future in the library after Annemarie Weyl Carr's lecture

I leave you with a reminder of CAARI's more normal cheer. The photo above shows Annemarie in January with some of our enthusiastic gang of researchers. On the left are two of our incoming graduate student fellows, Rafael Laoutari and Cassandra Donnelly, and you'll hear more about their research projects in the next Newsflash. In the center is our CAARI Edgar Peltenburg Fellow in Cypriot Prehistory, Anna Spyrou, and on the right, our intern, Alexandra (Sandy) Szabo. I particularly wish to extend CAARI's deepest thanks to Sandy for all her help with digitizing the CAARI slide collection, cleaning and sorting the samples in the laboratory, creating a database of our resources and archaeological sites in the Akamas Peninsula and generally being an all-round joy to have around! She was with us here for five months as the recipient of a European Commission Erasmus+ Student Mobility Traineeship scholarship. Between working tirelessly to assist us, she used her free time in the library, to finish writing her MA dissertation in archaeology for her degree at Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary. CAARI welcomes a steady stream of students who are given the opportunity to spend time in Cyprus through the Erasmus program. If you are one of our academic colleagues based in Europe, do take a look at the Erasmus website to see how your students can benefit.

From all of us at CAARI, we wish you health and fortitude as you stay at home,

Lindy Crewe, PhD

Director, CAARI

	Dr. Nicholas Herrmann

With funding from the 2019 CAARI/CAORC Research Fellowship, I focused on the analysis of human remains from a series of Hellenistic through Early Christian period tombs identified in the Ayioi Omoloyites neighborhood of Lefkosia and from tombs recently excavated by the Department of Antiquities at the site of Kition in Larnaka. These collections span an important time period in the development of modern Cyprus, and they provide a view of two communities on the island. The project represents a collaboration between Texas State University (TXST), the Cyprus Institute (CYI), and the Republic of Cyprus Department of Antiquities (DOA). The  work on the Ayioi Omoloyites tombs represents a multi-year research project dating back to 2014, and the analysis of the Kition tombs began in 2018 with a permit issued to myself and Dr. Efthymia Nikita from CYI. Fortunately, DOA transferred the skeletal material from two Kition tombs (Agiou Georgiou Kontou Τ1 ΣΜ1 Υ259 and Anagenniseos T2 D900 D221.3) to the Acropolis storehouse in Lefkosia. As a result, research on the skeletal collections from both Ay. Omoloyites and Kition could occur simultaneously with members of the research team divided between the two projects.

The core research team included Herrmann (TXST), Nikita (CYI), Anna Karligkioti (CYI), Krysten Cruz (TXST), Kari Helgeson (TXST), and Fotini Constantinou (University of Leiden). In addition, Sophia Mavroudas (TXST) assisted in the analysis. Cruz focused on the analysis of the Ay. Omoloyites remains and the remainder team focused on the assessment of the Kition burials. Laboratory work on the two collections initiated on July 9 and continued until August 9.

	The proximal femur of a child with cribra femora recovered from Tomb 49 in the Ay. Omoloyites neighborhood (BoneID 6490). Photo taken by Krysten Cruz.

Over the course of the five-week study season, the research team completed the analysis of the two Kition tombs and several contexts from Tomb 49 from Ay. Omoloyites. For Kition, a total of 2466 Bone Identification (BoneID) numbers were assigned. These BoneIDs represent 3174 elements and 10,750 fragments. The total sample analyzed to date weighs 39.7 kg. A preliminary demographic summary of the sample was presented at the 2^nd International Congress on Archaeological Sciences in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East (ICAS-EMME 2) at the Cyprus Institute in November 2019 and can be viewed online:Kition_Bioarch_Poster_Final.pdf

From Ay. Omoloyites, three boxes (34, 41, and 48) of remains were sorted and inventoried, adding 849 new BoneID to the project database. As part of this effort, specific observations concerning age-at-death estimation and cribra femora were made. Cribra femora, a condition present on the anterior surface of the proximal femur, has been considered an indicator of genetic anemias (i.e. thalassemia). This work by Herrmann and Cruz will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in 2020. Finally, sixteen bone samples from Tombs 47 and 49 were exported to the Center for Applied Isotopic Studies at the University of Georgia for analysis. These samples will provide a more detailed view of the diet of early Lefkosians. Results from this work will be available in 2020 and will be the focus of a future manuscript.

Nathan Meyer

My doctoral research on Cyprus addresses gaps in the archaeological record for the Early Iron Age by focusing on improving the data we can get from the often plain and non-diagnostic ceramics recovered from field surveys. The methodological objective is to test whether temporal, functional and possibly provenience data of survey ceramics will be improved via macroscopic, microscopic and portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) techniques.

In order to establish a working baseline of regional ceramics, and by invitation of the CAARI Director, Dr. Lindy Crewe, my work first focuses on ceramics housed at CAARI itself.  These ceramics are housed in two separate collections:  one in the display cases in the entrance hall and the second, less well documented, in secure storage space in a series of metal shelves with wooden trays of 

	Shelves in CAARI's study collection

artifacts.  Researchers need to request to see these shelves, so I provide a glimpse of one section at right.

While I was at CAARI, a paper copy of catalog information for the materials in the entry hall was located. I provide a sample from it below. It will serve as an important source of initial information about these articles.

  

Sample card, paper catalogue of items in the showcases in the hall at CAARI

I began work at CAARI for a month across November and December 2019.  This initial work was focused on organizing an initial plan for how the work was to proceed.  CAARI's well designed, on-site laboratory will provide an excellent working space for preparation, formal cataloging, and both the physical and chemical analysis of the ceramics.  It really is an ideal working environment, having the ceramics close at hand as well as providing a quality workspace.  Much additional time was spent in the excellent library doing background research on the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age ceramics.  In particular I used the library to 

Prototype digital catalogue card

research how field surveys on Cyprus have worked with ceramic data.  This information  was used to create an initial version of the digital catalog that will be left behind for CAARI at the end of my work, a prototype of which is shown at left.

The other main objective of the November / December work was to secure access to a pXRF machine. Earlier attempts to lease a pXRF, first in Cyprus itself and then Athens, were not successful. This put me at something of an impasse, from which I was rescued by Dr. Andreas Charalambous of the Archaeological Research Unit (ARU), University of Cyprus; we have agreed upon a May - June 2020 schedule for use of ARU's pXRF. In this I am quite fortunate, as Dr. Charalambous is an expert on the pXRF analysis process and has already done some work along similar lines to my research. Thus, I hope to return to CAARI on the 5th of May and anticipate working with the ceramics for approximately eight weeks.

As always, the best part of a CAARI visit is working with the CAARI staff and interacting with local and visiting scholars.  This time the hostel was full and lively, and helped make the stay pleasant as well as intellectually stimulating.  I am very pleased that my upcoming May and June stay will coincide with several notable events at CAARI including the CAARI Symposium and the annual Archaeological Workshop.  The support of the CAARI staff, the top-notch facilities, the collegiality of the local academic community including Dr. Charalambous at the ARU - all of this combines to afford an extraordinary opportunity made possible by being a Swiny Fellow.

CAARI Trustee and Treasurer

CAARI continues to expand our holdings of material published in the Cyprus internment camps.  From 1946 to 1949, the British government maintained internment camps on Cyprus for Jews attempting to immigrate to Mandatory Palestine in violation of British policy. People in the camps created and circulated handmade newspapers, pamphlets and booklets. Very few survive, and CAARI is proud to be able to augment its already-recognized holdings with 11 additional pieces:

Recently Acquired Pamphlet published in the Cyprus Detention Camps

11. "Cyprus Songbook", Booklet 1, edited by Meir Neumann. Published by The Pinchas Ruthenberg Seminar in Cyprus, winter camps (printed in Dhekelia), the eve of Rosh Hashana 1949.

All of CAARI's holdings of material published in the Jewish Detention Camps in Cyprus were acquired from the Rimon Family Collection in Haifa.   Dr. Yirmiyahu Rimon (1933-2018) was one of the greatest documenters of Israeli history. While others wrote books and films on the subject, "Yerri" sought to assemble the physical history of Palestine/Israel in all of its original variety, styles and colors.  With time, the Rimon Family Collection became among the most comprehensive of its kind. Dr. Rimon's Haifa collection, for instance, contained 7,000 items alone, including documents, photographs, and other ephemera dating from the late 19th century, prior to the beginnings of the modern Jewish presence in Haifa. The Haifa collection was ultimately purchased by the Haifa City Museum.  Much of his collection of printed material from the Jewish Detention Camps is now at CAARI.

Dr. Christopher Davey

Underground water storage at the Roman site of Kourion was more important than previously recognized. Exploration in the 1960s by Joseph S. Last identified many cisterns, but as they were open to the surface, they had largely filled with rubble. The recent excavations at Kourion under the direction of Prof. Tom Davis, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, has found two capped cisterns which were accessible to their full depth of 8m.

  

The cisterns, which had narrow entrances, were surveyed remotely by Dr. Christopher Davey, University of Melbourne and Australian Institute of Archaeology. He used a full-frame DSLR camera Canon 6D with a wide-angle lenses and flashlight on an extension pole where it was operated by wi-fi. The images were processed using Agisoft Metashape and Blender. The fieldwork for this approach was comparatively quick, a couple of

Dr. Davey lowing the remotely controlled camera into Cistern 161

hours, and it was safe as it did not involve anyone entering the cistern, but processing involved many hours of computer time. The main advantage over traditional plumbline and tape methods is the output, which is an accurate 3D visualization.

The cisterns had inlet pipes to fill them with water from the aqueducts leading to the city. The water drawn from the cisterns would have been clear and cool, ideal for the heat of summer in Cyprus. The stratigraphy indicates that the cisterns were constructed during the earliest phase of the Roman city of Kourion. They may not have been used to the end of their useful life, as one appeared to have been actively decommissioned.