The Vigla Archaeological Field School

Rowan Eng-Kryston

The pigeons of Cyprus roam Larnaca in hoards. Just like the stray cats, they wander the city like it’s their own. Pigeons were originally domesticated for meat, entertainment, and message delivery, which is why they are still so prevalent in metropolitan areas. Several types of pigeons were bred for hyper specific purposes, such as parlor pigeons–they are flightless and were designed to somersault across the floors of parlors, which served as a strange and archaic pastime for the rich. Although, as other technologies developed, pigeons became less and less useful. And now that pigeons don’t serve a specific purpose, they are no longer as highly valued as they once were. So pigeons are now often viewed as pests–some even refer to them as “rats of the sky.”

But as a lover of rats and pigeons I have never understood this. Pigeons are beautiful birds, they come in so many colors and they have gorgeous iridescent feathers. Their loyal and docile nature makes them great pets. They are one of the best and easiest birds to keep because they are already domesticated, as opposed to parrots or parakeets who are wild tropical birds that either must be captured from their natural habitat or bred in captivity. Pigeons are deeply affectionate creatures who crave companionship, which is why they live in cities and why they are so eager to eat the scraps that humans give them. Pigeons rely on humans to help them survive, which is one of the reasons why I have such a soft spot for them. 

While I was roaming Larnaca with Kendall and Joaquin, we stopped at the Church of Saint Lazarus–where many pigeons congregate. I have a habit of trying to catch wild animals, and this time was no exception. So I was running about the square, trying to catch a pigeon, any pigeon–which I had only successfully done one other time. And as I was frantically trying to snatch one, I noticed a man chuckling at my many failed attempts. As I turned to laugh with him he said, “There are two ways to catch a pigeon.” My curiosity was immediately piqued, and I asked him to tell me his ways. To which he said “First is the way you’re doing it.” I asked the what the second way was, because clearly the first wasn’t working out. He disappeared into his shop (named Everyday is a Gift, I got a free ring and a lovely pair of earrings after this interaction), and he returned with a piece of bread. He handed it to me and told me to drop the crumbs at my feet. As soon as the first piece of bread hit the ground, a hoard of pigeons descend upon us. I dropped more crumbs at my feet and while they were distracted I grabbed one. I was absolutely delighted and beaming with pride, I caught a pigeon, he was in my grasp. He wasn’t even mad, he just looked at me with deep confusion, as if he couldn’t believe he had been caught. After I had sufficiently celebrated my victory, I set him free, but only to grab a new pigeon. Kendall had been watching the whole time and she joined in on the fun. So we were each excitedly clutching our pigeons, who were just deeply flabbergasted and too confused to even protest. We thanked the Pigeon Master for his guidance, and he smiled at us, invited us to look around in his shop, and disappeared back inside. Then we said goodbye to both our pigeons and set them free. 

The Vigla Archaeological Field School is back for 2025! We’re one week into this year’s season, so look here for frequent student posts about archaeology and Cypriot living. This year our students are Mason Ross (for a second time), Riley Stockton (also for a second time!), Aoife Raney, Rowan Eng-Kryston, Joaquin Pellegrin-Alvarez, Sarah Haselton, and Kendall Christensen. The project, cosponsored by MSU Denver and Trinity University in San Antonio, also includes students both universities, as well as a Cypriot student from the University of Cologne in Germany. Our staff are:

Tom Landvatter, Reed (co-director)
Brandon R. Olson, MSU Denver (co-director)
Melanie Godsey, Trinity University (co-director)
Brandon Baker, Elon University (field director and trench supervisor)
Elise Poppen, Indiana University (trench supervisor)
Emilie Nordhues, UCLA (trench supervisor)
Lex Ladge (’19), University of Chicago (registrar)
Justin Stephens, MSU Denver (senior staff)

Emi Clarke

With the end of the season upon us, Team Awesome (myself, Parker, Kayra, Matt, Apollo and fearless leader Elise) focused its efforts on finding Literally Any Floor Surface, as well as further articulating the various walls, fake walls and slabs that define the architecture of EU 25. Before any of that could happen though, we needed to do photogrammetry; a process which compiles hundreds of photographs into a 3d model. This means getting on site even earlier in some cases so that photos can be taken before the sun rises and casts too many shadows over the trench. Luckily our photogrammetry was completed without incident, and we moved on with the last little bits of excavation.

Continue reading “Final Trench Update EU25 – No More New Dirt :(“

Mason Ross

Being a student of archaeology, I’ve seen a lot of pottery. It doesn’t matter what region or even time period you focus on, if you study archaeology you will be looking at ceramic vessels and lots of them. Ceramics can be incredibly useful for making chronologies based on vessel shape which allows archaeologists to date sites and stratigraphy. At the same time, once you’ve seen one pot or jar or bowl, you kind of seen them all. You can look in your kitchen cabinets and get a pretty good idea of what ancient people were working with. I can’t say I have ever been baffled by pottery before this trip. During our visits to archaeological museums in Larnaca, Nicosia, and Paphos, one thing became abundantly clear: Bronze Age Cypriot ceramics are weird. They came in shapes I had never seen nor imagined and with decorations that baffled me. There were jugs with three bodies connected to one mouth, large ring-tubes with spouts, and animal-shaped vessels. Some larger vessels were decorated with smaller ceramics sitting on top, a large bowl with small jugs sitting on the rim.

Continue reading “Bring Back Weird Bronze Age Pottery”

Ella Arnold

We finished our excavations in EU 30 this week! Though Paris and I are both disappointed that our lofty goal of digging to the level of bedrock in our trench did not come to fruition, we were able to turn up so many amazing artifacts and uncover multiple “features” in the trench. The last time I wrote, we were still excavating SU 10102. At the time, the most notable aspect of 10102 was the “plastery gypsum” slab that we uncovered in the southeast of the trench; we made the decision to articulate around the stones that we noticed running both north-south and east-west in the eastern and northern portions of the trench respectively and then close the unit. After doing so, we opened SU 10103. We initially intended the unit to be exclusively the area under the slab feature, which we carefully articulated around and then removed at the beginning of our 10103 excavations.  However, once the slab was removed, we were unable to note a change in soil, and there were no notable finds beneath besides one (admittedly super cool) bronze fish hook, we developed a plan to remove approximately ten centimeters of soil to the depth of the pit beneath the slab feature. 

Continue reading “Final Trench Update – EU30”

Emi Clarke

Honestly, lead probably doesn’t need to be defended in the same way pigeons do, but I do think the research of it does. The tragedy of lead is that if you try to look up something like “use of lead in Hellenistic Cyprus”, what you will likely find is a bounty of papers using lead to analyze copper in Cyprus. Although lead is incredibly valuable to archeologists as a means of locating the sources of, for lack of a better word, “fancier” metals such as gold, silver and copper through Lead Isotope Analysis, the production, trade and use of element itself is woefully under researched. Admittedly, lead had comparatively limited applications in antiquity, but it seems the least we can do for such a useful resource in modern archeology is to research it in kind. 

Production

It isn’t entirely clear if the lead used to make the items found on our site was mined on Cyprus or imported from elsewhere. There is some evidence to support either possibility, though the latter seems more likely. Historically, lead has been most commonly produced as a byproduct of silver mining, rather than being mined for specifically. Cyprus was mainly mined for copper, which is abundant around the Troodos mountain range in the Pillow Lava formations. Some even suggest Cyprus was named for its incredibly vast surface deposits of the valuable resource. Less well accounted for are vast deposits of silver on the island. There are some ancient sources, namely Pseudo-Aristotle, that suggest silver and gold mines existed in Cyprus, but recent geological surveys indicate that there wasn’t enough of either substance to warrant mining. It is more likely then that lead made its way to Cyprus through trade, perhaps from Sardinia, one of the largest producers of lead at the time. 

In any case, after the lead was brought to Cyprus, manufacturing it into usable objects was relatively simple. Lead has a low melting point of 327.5 degrees Celsius, compared to copper’s 1,085 and iron’s 1,538, which means it can be melted on your average campfire. The fumes created by melting lead are of course very noxious and the effects are well documented, Pliny (yay Pliny!) even recommends that workers protect their airways during the process. After melting the lead, it could be used to make a variety of wonderful things such as:

Continue reading “In defense of lead?”

Parker Miraldi

After a long, hot day on site, there’s nothing better than a smoothie. It’s the ultimate refreshment—cold, sweet, and full of healthy fresh fruit—and here in Larnaca we’re lucky enough to have TWO smoothie places right next to our hotel. Of these two choices, the group’s collective favourite by a mile is Chris’ Juice Bar. While the prices are pretty much the same at both places (only 4 euro for a large!), Chris’ has a much larger selection of ingredients and is run by the Chris himself and his wife, both of whom started to recognise our group after about the third day of digging. It has all the charm of a local’s spot despite being right in the centre of the tourist area, and stopping by every afternoon has genuinely been one of the highlights of this month. So, to celebrate Chris getting his own dedicated line in my budget, here are a few reviews of flavours I’ve tried!

Continue reading “Reviewing Chris’ Juice Bar Flavours”

Riley Stockton

Alas, it is our final week here in Cyprus meaning that our days have been a race against the clock to get as much as we can get done at the site and pottery washing at Terra Ombra. As Laila reported in our last trench report, we got that pottery deposit out and once again began chipping away at the dirt to uncover more in EU28 this past Friday. By Saturday morning we found more plaster, indicating a second floor, with once again a plethora of pottery waiting to be dug up by us. We followed the same process that Laila described for the first pottery deposit; we left them in situ and meticulously articulated them so we could take a photogrammetry of the deposit. 

Continue reading “Final EU28 Trench Update”

Kayra Lyons

Throughout all of our archaeological museum visits, there have been many common themes. We have explored the archaeological museums in Limassol, Paphos, Nicosia, as well as Larnaca, giving a good idea of what Cypriot archaeology has to offer. One kind of artifact that I was surprised to find so many of were the carved limestone heads that appeared in most of the museums we visited. What I heard Tom describing that I took note of as interesting with the heads, as well as with many of the other artifacts present in the archaeological museums, was the mixing of many sculptural styles.

From Egyptian, to Greek, to Assyrian, Cypriot limestone heads can be represented as a mix of all and more. It is representative of the many powers that have had influence over Cyprus throughout history. As someone who is half Cypriot, learning and understanding more about ancient Cypriot history was something that was important to me on this trip, and I think these limestone heads were a good representation of what I found interesting.These heads are a
representation of the influences on Cypriot sculpture that came from abroad.

Continue reading “Limestone heads and ancient Cyprus”

Laila Maidenberg

Sometimes after a morning of digging, you need something to do in the afternoons that’s less warm and salty than swimming, but more exciting than hiding inside your air-conditioned room (as tempting as that sometimes seems). My solution: one of my favorite Portland pastimes, trying out new coffee shops. While I was on a quest for an American style iced latte, I did notice that interestingly, many drinks here, either hot or iced came with a layer of foam on top, which was different, though not unwelcome from what I expect from an iced latte. 

Larenca is filled with all sorts of cute shops to try, and I’ve ranked them below all on the following factors:

1. Taste- how was their coffee? Disclaimer: this metric is based on an iced latte, so primarily rating their espresso, not drip coffee. 
2. Distance walking from the blazer
3. A/C?
4. Snack offerings and quality
5. Atmosphere- rated primarily for sitting and reading a book
6. Cost- again, for an iced latte

All factors are consolidated in this spreadsheet. And here’s a map, if you’d prefer a visual reference. 

Nick’s Coffee bike:

Though definitely not a coffee bike, Nick’s is a very cute coffee shop with vintage inspired decor, and comfortable couches to sit on. They only offer indoor seating, but have a variety of different seating options, both higher tables, and lower couches. Their coffee was pretty good, and they do offer multiple different espresso options with different tasting notes. Snacks on offer are mostly sweets, but their loaf cakes are pretty good. 

Continue reading “Coffee tasting in Larnaca “