Ancient History Ramblings

Former Cypriot President

A few days ago, the body of former Cypriot President, Tassos Papadopoulos, was stolen from its grave only a day before the first anniversary of his death. The body, which was buried in a Nicosia cemetery and was protected by a marble slab weighing more than 250 kilograms, was removed overnight in a heavy rainstorm. President Papadopoulos was an outspoken opponent of the UN Peace Plan to reunite the Turkish and Greek sections of the island and the desecration of his grave will certainly affect the current push toward reunification.

RSM

New Larnaca Airport

The new Larnaca airport opened recently. The new airport, which cost over 656 million euros, took three years to construct. As tourism on the island has grown, and become a more integral part of the Cypriot economy, the need for a more up-to-date airport with greater capacity has become more pressing. I have to admit that an upgraded airport will be nice, since when I fly out of the old airport - it is always very crowded and just hot enough to be uncomfortable as you wait for your flight.

RSM

Halfway Home

So, I am spending the night in London. My British Air flight left at 3:36 PM this afternoon (46 minutes late) and this always requires an overnight stay in London. It breaks the trip up, but makes it a 2 day trip to get home. It has been a long day of standing in lines (to check in, to pass Cypriot passport control, for security, to check in at the gate, to get on the bus, to get on the plane, to pass British passport control, to get on the hotel shuttle bus, and to check in at the hotel). It is almost like being in college again. Anyway, so far, so good.

RSM

Leaving Cyprus

Today is my last day in Cyprus as I fly back to the States this afternoon. It will be a 2 day trip with a night in London since my BA flight leaves Cyprus late this afternoon. It has been a productive 47 days in Cyprus. In addition to a successful PKAP season I was bale to look at the pottery at two other current projects  and even do a little research at CAARI (the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute in Nicosia. It has been a long season, though, and I am ready to return home where I can hopefully relax a little bit before I start teaching again in the middle of July.

RSM

More pottery reading

A late posting, I did not have an internet connection for a while.

I am currently in Polis looking at pottery collected during the Polis excavations. Last week I looked at the pottery collected during a survey in Athienou. Looking at pottery from other projects helps me with analyzing pottery collected during PKAP's survey and excavations. I almost hit the trifecta here at Polis, it looked like rain this morning and I really thought that it was going to rain, but it never did. That would have been my third rainfall in 3 different cities in one season. It cleared up and the sun came out. Polis makes me appreciate Pyla-Koutsopetria and Larnaka, it is much hotter and much more humid here - or maybe it makes me appreciate the air conditioning at the Petrou Brothers...

RSM

Some time off today

I have some time off today - half a day before we take the students on the project to Kourion. I am trying to rest up a bit since I am really tired today. We had a long day in the field yesterday and the IUP World Tour left Cyprus late last night. We took the group to the airport at 12:30 AM so I was up really late. Then this morning I took Nick Karatjas to the airport for his early morning flight to the States. Nick is a colleague in the economics department at IUP who came over to Cyprus to help with the study tour, and his help was greatly appreciated. Nick's family is from Cyprus and his great outlook on life and enthusiasm were a great addition to the study tour. Plus, he has a great sense of humor....for an economist. We are hoping that he will come back next summer to contribute to PKAP. Thanks Nick.

RSM

First Use of Gigapan

I finally was able to use my new Gigapan system. It is my new gadget for the year and I am planning to take it to Cyprus and take large panaramic images of our site. I have to admit it was very easy to use and only took a few minutes to set up. The stitching software gave me a few problems that I had to figure out, but they turned out to be my fault - no suprise there. My first Gigapan photo (Sutton Hall)  looks ok, but has a few issues:

1) I need to do a better job of leveling the tripod - the photo is tilted slightlly to the left.

2) I should have thought better about where I was taking my picture - the trees in front of the building prevent it from being zoomed too closely.

3) I have a partial person in the lower right corner.

Check it out at http://share.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=21619&window_height=807&window_width=1659

I have another one that is in process, it will be interesting to see what happens with it.

RSM

Cyprus, Rain, and Waterpark?

As we start to prepare for the 2009 fieldseason, Cyprus starts to intrude on my thoughts more often. One thing I do to prepare for the summer is to start reading the Cyprus news online. At the AIA last weekend, I talked to several Cypriots who were happy that it had been raining quite a bit over the last few weeks. This is good news since the drought on the island was fairly bad last summer. The Cyprus Mail reports that the water levels in the reservoirs are only about half of what they were last year at this time and that despite the recent rains, it will take several more downpours to help out.

After reading about the rainfall situation, I then happened upon an article about a group of Russian investors looking to develop an amusement park on the island. It was quite interesting to read since they will be building a 5 star hotel, with theatres, a waterpark, a mall, and even a place to watch reenactments of the Battle of Salamis. This new site would be open by 2012 ad bring in an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 visitors a day.  It was actually amusing to imagine this until I got to the part where the article mentioned where the proposed building site was going to be.................PYLA. This totally freaked me out. If this is true, what will this mean for the Pyla-Koutsopetria project? Sure, we can relax after a hard day's work at the waterpark or dine at fancy restaurants, but what will this mean for the development of the area? This certainly underscores the importance of our work in the area and reinforces to me the importance of expanding our survey area before development of the area increases.

RSM

Card Carrying Archaeologist

On Saturday Nick Karatjas and I did a little sight-seeing since he was leaving early Sunday morning.After a brief PKAP staff meeting to plan the upcoming week we set off for Kourion. It was a really nice day, the temperature had dropped a bit and there was a nice breeze blowing in off the water. I was very interested to see what the admission prices were at the sites, particularly since they had been so reasonable over the last few years (1 or 2 Cypriot pounds per person, about US$2-4). I was relieved to see at Kourion that it was now 1.71 Euro, about $2.65. I also showed the guard my AIA (Archaeological Institute of America) membership card and he gave me free admission. W spent a couple of hours visiting the site and it was fabulous as usual - I think it is the 2nd best site on the island behind the mosaics at Paphos.

After finishing up the main site, we went up the road and looked at the Roman Stadium and then decided to find a place for lunch. We finally stopped at the town of Zygi which is a small village that used to be an important site for the importation of carobs, but is now collection of collection of fish tavernas along the water. It reminds me a bit of Calabash, SC which is just north of Myrtle Beach. We stopped at the same restaurant we always stop at - Mario's Fish Taverna, and had some salad, fries, and fresh calamari. The calamari was excellent as usual, and I ate way too much....as usual. Later last night we took Nick out to Melitzes, a restaurant in Larnaka, for his last meal on the island. It was, as usual, a very nicely done Cypriot Meze and a nice send-off for Nick. I got up early this morning and dropped Nick off at the airport at 5:00 AM to catch his flight back to Pennsylvania and IUP. I know this blog makes it looks like I am only on Cyprus for eating and sight-seeing, but I am honestly doing work. For example, we are getting ready to head into the field to check the R8.....after I go get a doughnut.....

RSM