Views from Phlamoudhi, Cyprus.

• Author: Fisher, Kevin D.
• Position: Book review

Views from Phlamoudhi, Cyprus. Edited by JOANNA S. SMITH. Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, vol. 63. Boston: AMERICAN SCHOOLS OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH, 2008. Pp. xiii + 144, illus. $74.95 (cloth). [Distributed in North America by David Brown Book Co., Oakville, Conn.]

The conflict of 1974 brought an end to officially sanctioned archaeological work in the northern part of Cyprus, leaving in its wake a number of unfinished projects and unanswered questions about this important region. One such project was Columbia University's Expedition to Phlamoudhi, under the direction of the late Edith Porada. From 1970 to 1973, the expedition conducted survey and excavations at the sites of Phlamoudhi-Melissa and Phlamoudhi-Vounari, located on the narrow coastal plain north of the Kyrenia Mountains. In spite of a few preliminary reports, specialist studies, and one book about Vounari (S. M. S. Al-Radi, Phlamoudhi Vounari: A Sanctuary Site in Cyprus [Goteborg: Astrom], 1983), much of the material from these excavations remained in storage at Columbia University, unanalyzed and unpublished. In 2000, Joanna Smith began the Phlamoudhi Archaeological Project in an effort to complete this work. The present volume contains nine papers (revised and expanded) from the symposium that accompanied the Settlement and Sanctuary: Views from the Columbia University Excavations at Phlamoudhi, Cyprus exhibition held at Columbia University in 2005.

Smith's opening chapter, "From Expedition to Exhibition," introduces the various papers and places them in context by providing background on the original expedition and the current efforts to analyze and publish the materials that it recovered. It is wide-ranging and weaves together various lines of archaeological evidence into a useful settlement history of the Phlamoudhi region through to the Classical period. In the second chapter, Despo Pilides undertakes the challenging task of outlining the history of archaeological research in Cyprus, with emphasis on the north coast region. While she does not directly address the effects of significant changes in archaeological theory and methodology, the chapter does provide a concise summary of archaeological projects on either side of the 1974 watershed and how their findings have changed perceptions about various periods of the Cypriot past. Jay Noller gives a brief account of the geology and landscape of the Phlamoudhi region in the third chapter, with the aim of...