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Late Cypriot tombs at Maroni Tsaroukkas, Cyprus1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Sturt W. Manning  and
Sarah J. Monks
Sturt W. Manning
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Reading
Sarah J. Monks
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Reading
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Abstract

On the centenary of British Museum investigations at the site of Maroni Tsaroukkas in southern Cyprus, we present the findings of the re-excavation of funerary deposits at this Late Bronze Age site. We discuss the historical background to the discovery of tombs and artefacts at the site by the British Museum in an attempt to understand and tie in more recent discoveries. The results of excavation over the past five years are assessed in terms of the evolution of funerary practice at the site, and in the valley as a whole, and the role of locally produced and foreign objects within such contexts. In particular, we discuss the role of prestige imports and influence in conspicuous consumption and funerary display during the LC II period. With their obvious political and economic connotations, aspects of foreign trade and influence are linked to other investigations at the site; these are principally concerned with the role of Tsaroukkas as the principal port in the Maroni valley and the development of the urban centres at Tsaroukkas and nearby Maroni Vournes.

Type
Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 93 , November 1998 , pp. 298 - 351
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1998

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References

2 See L. Steel in Tsaroukkas, 86–89.

3 Johnson; Cadogan, G., ‘The British Museum's work at Maroni’, in Ioannides, G. C. (ed.), Studies in Honour of Vassos Karageorghis (Lefkosia, 1992), 103–8Google Scholar.

4 Catling, H. W., ‘Patterns of settlement in Bronze Age Cyprus’, Op. Ath. 4 (1962), 129–169 at p. 148Google Scholar; Johnson, 38–9; personal inspection of Cyprus Survey collections in 1995 by authors.

5 e.g. Portugali, Y. and Knapp, A. B., ‘Cyprus and the Aegean: a spatial analysis of interaction in the 17th–14th centuries BC’, in Knapp, A. B. and Stech, T. (eds), Prehistoric Production and Exchange: The Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean (Los Angeles, 1985), 44–78Google Scholar, esp. figs. 4–4, 4–6, 4–7, 4–9, 4–10, 4–12, 4–13.

6 Johnson.

7 For the difficulties of locating the work, see n. 3. For the ‘map’, see PLATE 58 a; also in Johnson, pl IV.

8 See Cadogan, G., ‘Maroni and the Late Bronze Age of Cyprus’, in Karageorghis, V. and Muhly, J. D. (eds), Cyprus at the close of the Late Bronze Age (Nicosia, 1984), 1–10Google Scholar; id., ‘Maroni in Cyprus, between west and east’, in V. Karageorghis (ed), Acts of the International Archaeological symposium ‘Cyprus between the Orient and the Occident’ (Nicosia, 1986), 104–13; id., ‘Maroni and the monuments’, in E. J. Peltenburg (ed.), Early Society in Cyprus (Edinburgh, 1989), 43–51; id., ‘Maroni VI’, RDAC (1992), 51–8; id., ‘Maroni: change in Late Bronze Age Cyprus’, in P. Åström and E. Herscher (eds), Late Bronze Age Settlement in Cyprus: Function and Relationship (SIMA Pocket-book 126; Jonsered, 1996). 15–22.

For references to Maroni as a major site, and for estimates of the site size, see O. Negbi, ‘The climax of urban development in Bronze Age Cyprus’, RDAC 1986, 97–121 at p. 107; Merrillees, R. S., ‘The government of Cyprus in the Late Bronze Age’, in Åström, P. (ed), Acta Cypria: Acts of an International Congress on Cypriote Archaeology Held in Göteborg on 22–24 August 1991, part 3 (SIMA Pocket-Book, 120; Jonsered, 1992), 310–28 at 328Google Scholar; Knapp, A. B., ‘Emergence, development and decline on Bronze Age Cyprus’, in Mathers, C. and Stoddart, S. (eds), Development and Decline in the Mediterranean Bronze Age (Sheffield, 1994), 271–304Google Scholar at 271, 283–7; id., The Archaeology of Late Bronze Age Cypriot Society: The Study of Settlement, Survey and Landscape (Glasgow, 1997), 53–7.

9 Keswani, P. S., ‘Hierarchies, heterarchies, and urbanization processes: the view from Bronze Age Cyprus’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 9 (1996), 211–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., ‘Models of local exchange in Late Bronze Age Cyprus’, BASOR 292 (1993), 73–83; Knapp (n. 8), 46–68; Knapp, A. B. and Cherry, J. F., Provenience Studies and Bronze Age Cyprus: Production, Exchange and Politico-economic change (Madison, 1994)Google Scholar.

10 For a review of work to 1996, see Manning, S. W and De Mita, F. A. Jr., ‘Cyprus, the Aegean, and Maroni Tsaroukkas’, in Christou, D.et al. (eds), Proceedings of the International Archaeological Conference ‘Cyprus and the Aegean in Antiquity from the Prehistoric Period to the 7th Century A.D. Nicosia, 8–10 December 1995 (Nicosia, 1997) 101–42Google Scholar.

11 MVASP, S. W. Manning, D. Bolger, M. J. Ponting, L. Steel, and A. Swinton, ‘Maroni Valley Archaeological Survey Project: preliminary report on 1992–1993 seasons’, RDAC 1994, 345–67; Tsaroukkas, Manning and De Mita (n. 10).

12 See Johnson, 7–13. We thank V. Tatton-Brown for permission to study the records and materials held by the British Museum.

13 P. Christian, letter of 23 Oct. 1897 from Limassol to Walters. No. 49 in volume = 65D, Correspondence, Excavations in Cyprus, p. 3.

14 H. B. Walters, Letter P, No. 3480, 18 Nov. 1897 from Limassol to the British Museum.

15 Ibid., p. 2 (referring to 17 Nov.).

16 L. Steel, ‘The social impact of Mycenaean imported pottery in Cyprus during the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries Be’, BSA (1998), forthcoming; Keswani, P. S., ‘Dimensions of Social Hierarchy in Late Bronze Age Cyprus: An Analysis of the Mortuary Data from Enkomi’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 2 (1989), 49–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 B. Gomez and P. P. Pease, ‘Early Holocene Cypriot coastal palaeogeography’, RDAC 1992, 1–8.

18 Walters (n. 15). This British Museum work was very much part of what Karageorghis, V., Cyprus:From the Stone Age to the Romans (London, 1982), 22Google Scholar has referred to as the ‘unrestrained onslaught’ during the 19th cent, against Cyprus's antiquities. See further on 19th cent, archaeology in Cyprus and its sometimes dubious nature in Goring, E., A Mischievous Pastime: Digging in Cyprus in the Nineteenth Century (Edinburgh, 1988)Google Scholar.

19 H. B. Walters. Mr Murray, 23 Nov. 1897, p. 2. From c/o J.W. Williamson, Esq.; Limassol, 65d no. 50.

20 Id. Walters to Principal Librarian, British Museum [assumed]. 3 Dec. 1897, from Limassol, P no. 3671, p. 3.21Ibid.

22 Id. to British Museum. 18 Nov. 1897, from Limassol, P no. 3480.

23 Id. to Murray, 24 Nov. 1897, 63d no. 51, p. 2.

24 P. Christian to Walters, 17 March 1898 from Limassol.

25 H. B. Walters (n. 19), p.3. See also the passages cited at no. 23.

26 Ibid., p. 2.

27 Walters (n. 23).

28 Id. (n. 21), p. 1.

29 Id. to Murray, 16 Dec. 1897, from c/o C. D. Cobham Esq., Larnaka, 63d no. 52.

30 Id. to Principal Librarian, 22 Dec. 1897, P 41.

31 See MVASP, 281–3; Tsaroukkas, 89–92. The area surveyed by total collect in 1991 (MVASP, 283, fig.8), selected for further investigation in 1993, lay above MT tombs 4 and 5.

32 Tsaroukkas, 96, Fig. 9, pl. XII. Note that all grid squares are 5 m × 5 m, and are named by their SW corner. For the Maroni Tsaroukkas (MT) site grid, see FIG. 4. To avoid confusion with the British Museum (BM) tombs and their numbers, our tombs are prefixed as MT Tomb 1, etc.

33 The following account is based primarily on study in April 1995 by Dr Louise Steel assisted by Elinor Ribeiro. However, finds marked by an asterisk were not examined by Steel at this time; these entries in the catalogue and the ensuing discussion are dependent on observations made by Andrea Swinton in 1993, Elinor Ribeiro in 1994–97, and Louise Steel in July–August 1995. All measurements are in centimetres.

34 AA pattern defined in South, A. K., Russell, P., and Keswani, P. S., Vasilikos Valley Project 3: Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios II. Ceramics, Objects, Tombs, Specialist Studies. (SIMA 81:3; Göteborg, 1989), 95Google Scholar.

35 South et al. (n. 34), 48–51, pls. xxiii–xxv, figs. 48–52.

36 Eriksson, K. O, Red Lustrous Wheel-Made Ware (SIMA 103; Jonsered, 1993), 39, 40–41Google Scholar.

37 Eriksson (n. 36), 41.

38 Similar to examples from Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios Tom 1, K–AD 69 and 71: South et al. (n. 34), 99, pl. xii, fig. 42.

39 Herscher, E., ‘The pottery of Maroni and regionalism in Late Bronze Age Cyprus’, in Karageorghis, V. and Muhly, J. D. (eds), Cyprus at the End of the Late Bronze Age (Nicosia, 1984), 23–8 at p. 25Google Scholar.

40 L. Steel, forthcoming. See also Steel (n. 16).

41 See Tsaroukkas, 97, fig. 10.

42 M. H. Wiener, ‘The absolute chronology of Late Helladic IIIA2’ in M.S. Balmuth and R.H. Tykot (eds), Sardinian and Aegean Chronology: Towards the Resolution of Relative and Absolute Dating in the Mediterranean (in press).

43 See Tsaroukkas, 97, for first mention of this tomb.

44 Cadogan, G., ‘Patterns of the Distribution of Mycenaean Pottery in the Eastern Mediterranean’, in Karageorghis, V. (ed.), Acts of the International Archaeological Symposium: The Mycenaeans in the East Mediterranean (Nicosia, 1973), 166–74Google Scholar; id., ‘Cyprus, Mycenaean pottery, trade and colonisation’, in C. Zerner, F. Zerner, and J. Winder (eds), Proceedings of the International Conference ‘Wace and Blegen pottery as Evidence for Trade in the Aegean Bronze Age 1939–1989’ held at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Athens, December 2–3, 1989 (Amsterdam, 1993), 91–9; G. H. Gilmour, ‘Mycenaean III A and III B pottery in the Levant and Cyprus’, RDAC 1992, 113–28. See further in Steel (n. 16).

45 A. K. South and P. Russell, ‘Mycenaean Pottery and Social Hierarchy at Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios, Cyprus’, in Zerner, Zerner, and Winder (n. 44) 19–37; Steel (n. 16).

46 Johnson.

47 Cf. Portugali and Knapp (n. 5). For the coastal entrepôts and their role in LBA Cyprus, see also articles by Keswani (n. 9); Knapp and Cherry (n. 9), 123–67; Knapp (n. 8), 46–68.

48 Mountjoy, P., Mycenaean Decorated Pottery: A Guide to Identification (SIMA 83; Göteborg, 1986), 49–50Google Scholar.

49 Jacobsson, I., Aegyptiaca from Late Bronze Age Cyprus (SIMA 112;, Jonsered, 1994), 79Google Scholar.

50 BM 98. 12-1. 61;Johnson, 21 no. [1], pl. XX no. 111; Jacobsson (n. 49), 26 no. 118, pl. 32 no. 118.

51 See Jacobsson (n. 49), 79 with further refs. The British Museum excavations recovered other objects made of glass and decorated in a similar style from BM tomb 14 (Johnson, 22 nos. 113–14, pl. xxi nos. 113–14; Jacobsson, n. 49, 23 no. 100 and 25 no. 112, pl. 67 no. 100 and pl. 15.112). A complete example of the kohl tube found in our tomb 6 can be found from the site of Arpera, NE of Maroni. This object is described as a narrow cylinder of variegated glass with pomegranate-shaped mouth and glass stopper. Seven calyx tips are located at the opening. The decoration consists of yellow threads on a background faded to speckled brown (Jacobsson, n. 49, 26 no. 117, pl. 5 no. 117).

52 For example, the spindle bottle from Kalavasos Ayios Dhimitrios tomb 4, which is unique at the site: South et al. (n. 34), 103 K-AD 126, pl. 27, fig. 55.

53 Mountjoy, P. A., Mycenaean Pottery: An Introduction (Oxford, 1993), 43Google Scholar.

54 Ibid., 163.

55 Eriksson, K. O., ‘Egyptian amphorae from Late Cypriot contexts in Cyprus’, in Trade, Contact, and the Movement of Peoples in the Eastern Mediterranean. Studies in Honour of J. Basil Hennessy (Mediterranean Archaeology Supplement 3, Sydney, 1995), 199–205Google Scholar.

56 On the problems with Base Ring, see Vaughan, S., ‘Material and technical classification of Base Ring ware: a new fabric typology’, in Barlow, J., Bolger, D., and Kling, B. (eds), Cypriot Ceramics: Reading the Prehistoric Record (Philadelphia, 1991), 119–30Google Scholar.

57 Johnson, 16 no. 36, pl. XI no. 36.

58 Similar to Johnson, 23 no. 129, pl. XXIV no. 129.

59 Like K-AD 986–7, but smaller: South et al. (n. 34), 140, fig. 10.

60 Tufneli, O., Studies on Scarab Seals, vol. II: Scarab Seals and their Contribution to History in the Early Second Millennium BC (Warminster, 1984), 118, 123Google Scholar, pl. X.

61 Examples occur at almost every major Middle Bronze II B–C cemetery in Palestine. Tufnell (n. 60), pl. X illustrates a large number from Tell el-'Ajjul, Tell el Far'ah (S.), and Jericho.

62 Johnson, e.g. 64.

63 Finds in 1995 and 1996 of an assemblage of MC III–LC I ceramics with MB II C–LB 1 Canaanite jars from an area of the seabed off the Tsaroukkas site will be published by S. W. Manning, D. A. Sewell, and E. Herscher; a preliminary report after the 1995 season will also appear in Manning and De Mita (n. 10). The late Middle Cypriot to early Late Cypriot tombs at Maroni Kapsaloudhia are discussed in Herscher (n. 39).

64 Cf. Johnson, 18 no. 53 from British Museum tomb 6; Furumark, A., Mycenaean Pottery, vol. 3: pictorial supplement, ed Åström, P. et al. (Stockholm, 1992), pl. 139Google Scholar.

65 Tsaroukkas, 101–2, pl. XII no. 3, left.

66 Wiener (n. 42).

67 Cadogan (n. 44); Steel (n. 16).

68 Cf. Johnson.

69 Johnson, 18 no. 59, pls. xv no. 59, LXII no. 59; several Red Lustrous Wheelmade sherds were found by the Cyprus Survey at Maroni Tsaroukkas: ibid., 37 nos. 276–7 and 39 no. 299, pl. lv nos. 276–7, pl. LVIII no. 299.

70 The wider significance of Maroni as an anchorage, trading port, and local production centre will be discussed in detail in forthcoming reports.

71 Keswani, ‘Hierarchies’ (n. 9), 229–30 notes that ‘the spatial relationships between buildings and tombs at Maroni have not been fully elucidated’. We aim to improve and resolve this situation. See now also Manning, S.W., ‘Changing pasts and socio-political cognition in Late Bronze Age Cyprus’, World Archaeology 30 (1998), 39–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 As elsewhere in Cyprus: e.g. Keswani (n. 16).

73 Negbi (n. 8); Keswani, ‘Models’ (n. 9); Keswani, ‘Hierarchies’ (n. 9); Knapp, The Archaeology (n. 8).

74 Cadogan, ‘Maroni: change’ (n. 8), 15–18.

75 Cadogan, ‘Maroni VI’ (n. 8), 53–4, figs. 1–3. Note, despite fig. 2 showing an apparent opening of passage 19 to the outside (next to the main entrance to the Ashlar Building), Cadogan in fact writes that ‘It is possible, but unlikely, that passage 19 also opened onto the outside of the Building’ [our italics] (ibid., p. 54).

76 Cadogan, (n. 70), 17.