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W. Caraher, D. K. Pettegrew, R. S. Moore,

Pyla-

Koutsopetria

: The Archaeological Survey of an Ancient Harbor Town

7. Historical Conclusions

7.1. Introduction

Our goal in this rather lengthy conclusion is to move from diachronic patterns of artifactdistributions in our survey area to historical conclusions about the relationship of the Pylamicroregion to broader forces in Cyprus and the Mediterranean. As we have noted throughoutthis volume, our methods have produced an archaeological assemblage that is meaningful in lightof broader trends in the history and archaeology of Cyprus. In this chapter, we aim for aresponsible synthesis of the archaeological remains in light of historical scholarship.The Pyla littoral featured a wide range of natural advantages for any settlement. The flat,narrow coastal plain and inland areas represented good quality agricultural land on the island.The lowlands to the east of

Koutsopetria

was a likely embayment in historical times andfunctioned into Late Antiquity at least. The steep, flat-topped coastal plateaus provided securityfor settlements during turbulent times and offered views both of the bay of Kition in its entiretyand land routes from the east and west and passing north into the Mesaoria. These coastal heightswere also a source of building stone as the soft Nicosia formation limestone was easy to accessand quarry. The location of this stretch of coastline, then, provided access to communicationroutes, building material, fertile fields, defendable heights, and the sea.While our site is clearly oriented toward the sea for most of its history, the

Koutsopetria

region was also well connected to other inland sites of the island. The flat coastal plain to thewest served as an easy route to centers along the Larnaka Bay including Kition some 10 kmaway. Routes led north through Pyla (“gates”) to the Mesaoria plain and northwest to thefoothills of the Troodos. The copper mines and forests of the Troodos fueled the Cyprioteconomy throughout antiquity, and scholars have generally seen copper production as one of thekey considerations for understanding the settlement on the island. While our site was rather far east to participate in the primary production of copper, its position astride communication routes,access to a protected stretch of coast, and proximity to good land for agriculture likely tied theactivity at our site to the opportunities present in both the local economy and island-wideeconomic trends and patterns influence by the requirements and opportunities of copper production and exchange.The following conclusion will bring together the foregoing analysis of the remains at thesite by examining five interrelated contexts. These contexts will form a point of interface between our archaeological investigations and larger historical discussions and re-order our findings to speak to larger concerns among scholars on the island and stand as both a fittingconclusion and a point of departure of larger discussions of the archaeology and history of theisland of Cyprus. As such the various contexts have a significant degree of overlap and are notmeant to stand as independent analytical units or to provide definitive conclusions, but rather asapproaches to understanding the significance of our work at the site of Pyla-Koutsopetria.

W. Caraher, D. K. Pettegrew, R. S. Moore,

Pyla-

Koutsopetria

: The Archaeological Survey of an Ancient Harbor Town

First, we will summarize the artifacts and distributions of different periods at Pyla-

Koutsopetria

in terms of the context of assemblage and distribution. Summarizing theconclusions of Chapter 5, we will briefly sketch the nature of our data, the confidence we have inour summary, and an assessment of settlement in the microregion. This continues the theme of “source criticism” of our data and considers the suitability and quality of our evidence for larger historical conclusions.Second, we will consider the relationship between the evidence for settlement and landuse at our site and the process of state formation. In particular, we will examine evidence for how administrative structures projected political and economic power in our microregion. Thelittoral of Pyla stood near the eastern limits of the city of Kition. With the rise of that city in theIron Age, it is certain that the microregion of Pyla-

Koutsopetria

fell under its direct influence,and this proximity shaped the development of the site. After the end of independent Iron Agemonarchies on the island in the Hellenistic Era, the site continued to occupy an economically andmilitarily valuable stretch of coastline. Archaeological evidence for Hellenistic and Roman period activities in the region demonstrate the shift from the site as a valuable military assetduring a fragmented and tumultuous Hellenistic era and the relative stability of the EasternMediterranean in the Roman period.Third, we will contextualize the settlement patterns in the PKAP region in the broader regional context of Cyprus. In particular, we will look to understand how the activity in themicroregion compared with settlement patterns on the island, especially those documented byregional archaeological surveys over the last generation. While the record remains lacunose, our work at Pyla-

Koutsopetria

offers a high-resolution contribution to the expanding body of evidence for activities in the countryside around the ancient city of Kition, the southern coast of the island, and the southern reaches of the Mesaoria plain. While we will consider stateformation as fundamentally political act, our discussion of region settlement change willconsider how our site fits into economic, demographic, and social patterns on the island.Fourth, we will explore how site formation, demographic change, regional settlementtrends, and political power manifest itself in the changing religious landscape of Pyla within thecontext of Cyprus. The microregion produced specific evidence for concentrated religiousactivity throughout the historical period. The remains of an seemingly long-lived Iron Agesanctuary and the foundation of at least one Early Christian basilica marked this stretch of coastline as more than merely a confluence of political, economic, and demographicrelationships. The location of religious activities at Pyla-Koutsopetria, which was both a localcenter and at the periphery of larger political institutions, provides a useful case study for howreligion and other social and economic relations intersect in the Cypriot landscape.Finally, we will examine the Pyla littoral as a landscape formed through a dynamic rangeof connections extending across the island and the Mediterranean. The archaeological evidencecollected and analyzed from our site function as markers of connectivity between our region andother places. As Horden and Purcell and others have noted, the various connections that link together coastal communities in the Mediterranean basin do more than provide evidence for

W. Caraher, D. K. Pettegrew, R. S. Moore,

Pyla-

Koutsopetria

: The Archaeological Survey of an Ancient Harbor Town

economic relationships, but form the building blocks of an archaeologically mediatedMediterranean culture.

The distinct connections present on the Pyla littoral not only manifest aunique set of economic relationships, but also contribute to the existence of our site as a discreteancient place.

7.2.

Pyla-

Koustopetria

in Prehistory

The prehistoric activity along the stretch of coastline near Pyla is best-known to scholarsthe excavated site of Pyla-

Kokkinokremos

. V. Karageoghis, site’s most recent excavator, hasassociated it with some of the earliest Aegean Greek settlers on the island in the Late BronzeAge, and, as a result, the site is politically significant for arguments for Greek identity on theisland even though the archaeological grounding for these claims remains contested. While our work initially included the study of prehistoric remains in the Pyla region through various formsof survey, we decided to intentionally exclude the study of prehistoric remains in the area after by V. Karageoghis and colleagues resumed excavation at the site.

At the same time, however,we think that a few general words on the broader prehistory of the region will offer some usefulcontext for the study of the site in the historical era.The sites of the Pyla region joined Hala Sultan Tekke and Kition on Larnaka Bay to formone of the most densely settled regions in Late Bronze Age Cyprus. The most important regionalcenter east of Kition was Pyla-

Kokkinokremos

itself with its casemate style walls, facilities for large-scale storage, small-scale metallurgy, and contacts with the Levant and the Aegean basin.P. Dikaios, V. Karageorghis and M. Demas has shown revealed a series of Late Cypriot siteswith potentially overlapping dates.

The site of Pyla-

Steno

immediately to the east of this site, has never been fully published, but evidently overlapped in date with

Kokkinokremos

and may have featured some basic harbor or storage facilities.

There is evidence for burials at the site of

Koukoufouthkia

tothe southeast of

Kokkinokremos

and burial and settlement to the west at the site of

Verghies

Early unsytematic work at the site of Pyla-

Stavros

produced evidence for Late Cypriot activity just south of the village of Pyla, some 2 km north of the Pyla-

Koutsopetria

study area.

Further north of the Pyla littoral, the sites of Idalion, Ay. Sozomenos, Politiko-

Troulli

, Kalopidha, and(further north) Sinda and Enkomi demonstrate that the southeastern corner of the island sawintensive activity and settlement throughout the Late Bronze Age.

While the political,economic, and chronological relationships between these sites remains difficult to assess, it is

Horden and Purcell 2000, 1-25. Knapp 2008 has sought to apply some of these same concepts to Cyprus.

Karageorghis and Demas 1984

Dikaios 1971; Karageorghis and Demas 1984.

See Catling 1962; Masson 1966 with references; for a more recent consideration see Brown 2011.

Catling 1962; Masson 1966; Dikaios 1971

Masson 1966 with references.

For a general consideration of this region see: Knapp 2008, 237-239.

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Historical Conclusions, Pyla-Koutsopetria: An Archaeological Survey of an Ancient Harbor Town

This is a working draft of the conclusion for the publication of the survey conducted at Pyla-Koutsopetria on Cyprus from 2003-2010. It is a working draft. Do not cite without the authors' permission.

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