Under the direction of Joan Breton Connelly, professor of classics, the mission concluded a six-week program involving survey, excavation and study. Excavations were conducted at the ancient harbour site of Maniki, while surface survey continued at the ancient necropolis of Pegeia-Meletis.
An international team of scholars and students from NYU, the University of Cyprus and the Cyprus Institute participated in this multi-disciplinary research and publication program. An international team of scholars and students from NYU, the University of Cyprus and the Cyprus Institute took part in the multi-disciplinary program of research and publication.
Professor Stella Demesticha of the University of Cyprus directed the identification, classification, weighing and quantification of over 700 kilos of Late Roman amphorae sherds excavated by the NYU Geronisos team. The predominant type are Late Roman 1 amphorae of local Paphian and Cilician manufacture, followed by imports including Palestinian LR5 and LR4 amphorae from Gaza, all dated to the 6th century AD.
Importantly, the Maniki amphorae preserve 68 inscriptions painted in red ink. While such dipinti are known in Cyprus, they remain understudied for this period, thus the Maniki corpus holds great potential for future research. The abundance of amphora sherds dumped at Maniki comprise a constructional fill used to level the steeply sloping bedrock so that harbour works and piers could be built. These facilitated the delivery of great quantities Proconnesian marble blocks, column drums and capitals for the basilicas constructed at Cape Drepanum under the Emperor Justinian in the 6th century AD.
A second major focus of this season’s work was the rock-cut tomb of Hellenistic and Roman date discovered by the NYU Geronisos team in 2018. Professor Jolanta Mlynaczyk of the University of Warsaw continued her important work on the tomb’s ceramic sequence which dates from the 1st century BC to the 5th century AD. Dr Rebecca Gerdes of Cornell University’s Institute of Archaeology and Material Sciences took samples from the tomb’s Roman cooking pots for organic residue analysis. Her results may deepen our understanding of local dietary practice, as well as funerary and banqueting rituals. Dr Mariusz Burdajewicz of the University of Warsaw continued his documentation of glass vessels which date from the mid-1st century BC to the late 2nd/very early 3rd century AD. Most belong to the Roman Imperial period and include cast glass ribbed and linear-cut bowls, as well as blown glass bowls, cups, beakers, dishes, bottles, juglets and unguentaria.
Though the tomb was looted from the Roman period through the 20th century, some precious metals were discovered in situ by the NYU team. These are now under study by Dr Marianna Dági, Head of Collections and Chief Curator of Antiquities at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest. She is collaborating with Dr Thilo Rehren and Dr Meghna Desai of the Cyprus Institute’s Science and Technology in Archaeology and Culture Research Center (STARC) who have undertaken hhXRF analysis of these metals and are soon to begin SEM analysis.
Dr Efi Nikita of the Cyprus Institute continued her important work on the tomb’s human skeletal remains. The animal bones, under study by Dr Paul Croft, Special Scientist, Archaeological Research Unit, University of Cyprus, include numerous sheep, goat, pig, hare, fish and chicken remains deliberately introduced during the tomb’s funerary phase. Many of these are heavily burnt, shrunken and distorted, suggesting the deliberate incineration of what may be offerings to the dead or meals consumed by the living.
Professor Thomas Tartaron of the University of Pennsylvania directed students in an archaeological surface survey of the Meletis Necropolis, as he had done in 2018 when the tomb was discovered. He is readying his comparative research on these two surveys for publication, along with his survey across the fields surrounding Maniki Harbour, which he conducted in 2018 and 2019. Professor Tartaron also continued his Pegeian Fishermen Oral History Project interviewing locals who fished out of Maniki Harbour from an early age.
The 2025 season also included an informal survey across Cape Drepanum and the Meletis Forest Necropolis following “in the footsteps” of David George Hogarth’s journey, as recorded in his Devia Cypria of 1889. George Marshall Peters of the Explorers Club and Professor Lorenzo Calvelli of the University of Venice joined Professor Connelly in tracing Hogarth’s path with careful reading of his discoveries and insights.
