Maroni Tsaroukkas 2003 Overview

Maroni Tsaroukkas: Elements of a Late Bronze Age Polity in Southern Cyprus.

Sturt W. ManningThis grant will be for the publication of the final report on both the excavations carried out in 1993-1997, and the survey carried out in 1990-1995, at and around the Late Cypriot centre of Maroni Tsaroukkas in southern Cyprus (UTM zone 36, 535357 E, 3844823 N), directed by the applicant. The final report will be entitled: Maroni Tsaroukkas: elements of a Late Bronze Age polity in southern Cyprus and its regional context.

Maroni Tsaroukkas (and associated toponyms Aspres, Kapsaloudhia and Vournes) is one of the set of large Late Cypriot coastal sites-polities that emerge on Cyprus in the Late Cypriot I-IIC periods, c.1650-1200BC. It is a c.35ha total site. Various elite tombs and the small areas comprising the elite centres at a number of these Late Cypriot centres have been studied and are reasonably well known – including the Maroni elite centre at Vournes (not part of this project – excavations 1981-1988 by Gerald Cadogan). But little is know about the constitution of the majority of these settlements and especially their landscape context.

The Tsaroukkas project thus deliberately sought instead to investigate the overall site – its anatomy – and its regional context and development. It further specifically sought to explore utilitarian areas of the site close to the sea where trade and craft-production linked to international maritime trade might have occurred – since it has long been hypothesised that such trade was important to the development of the major Late Cypriot sites. Thus the project concentrated on providing a unique perspective on Late Cypriot society, economy, and politics and, for the first time, on providing a holistic regional context in which to study the role and development of a major Late Cypriot centre. The Maroni Late Cypriot site is special in this regard as it provides both a well-preserved stratigraphic sequence from earliest LCI through late LCIIC, and a largely intact total LBA site-polity area for holistic investigation. It offers a key to an important five-century period for both Cypriot and east Mediterranean prehistory – and it is important now to bring the 1990-1997 field work at and around Tsaroukkas to publication.

This application is for support to enable completion and submission for publication of a manuscript on the 1990-1997 field work at and around Maroni Tsaroukkas. Significant sets of data (e.g. Small finds catalogue, project database, GIS linked to the database), analyses (e.g. stratigraphic matrices for the buildings at the site and stratigraphic report therewith), hardcopy object drawings (virtually complete), and draft pottery reports (Early-Middle Cypriot, and Late Cypriot) already exist. What is required is research assistance/support (i) to revise and develop these into publication ready form, (ii) to write up the other finds classes based on paper/database records, (iii) to produce database and GIS output to support the discussion and interpretation chapters by the applicant, (iv) to turn drawings and/or existing PMTs and photographs into digital files ready for insertion into a ready-for-printing digital manuscript, and (v) to revise and make suitable for inclusion into the manuscript various specialist reports.