Erimi Pamboula is in the area of Limassol. The site was excavated by Porphyrios Dikaios in the 1930s. The works exposed part of a Chalcolithic settlement, which became the type-site for the period in the synthetic works of its excavator. Diane Bolger reassessed the assemblage in the 1980s and fixed its dating to the Middle Chalcolithic. Then research focus moved to the west part of the island, and to sites such as Lemba Lakkous, Kissonerga Mylouthkia and Mosphilia and, recently, Chlorakas Palloures. Nevertheless, on going rescue excavations by the Department of Antiquities in different parts of the modern settlement have indicated that Chalcolithic Pamboula retains significant research potential. Hence, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens resumed fieldwork next to the originally excavate part of the site last July.

The lecture will present the reasoning behind this new field project and will explain its methodological choices regarding field and documentation techniques. Most of all, it will present the results of the first excavation season. These include observations about the stratigraphy of the site, new architectural remains and a brief overview of the rich finds, including pottery, ground and chipped stone tools, jewellery, animal bones and other. The new data allow the distinction of a final phase of occupation of the settlement, and the related finds afford dating within the Late Chalcolithic. The picrolite finds exhibit a potential for reviewing existing interpretative models about regional centres of procurement of this raw material.

 

Giorgos Vavouranakis is Professor of Prehistoric Aegean: Theoretical Archaeology at the Department of History and Archaeology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA). He did his undergraduate studies at the same department specialising in archaeology and history of art (1994) and continued with postgraduate studies in Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Sheffield (MA 1997 and PhD 2002). His research interests include prehistoric funerary customs, landscape archaeology and the history of archaeology. He has participated in archaeological field projects in Greece and Cyprus.

He is the director of the Archaeological Project of Erimi Pamboula, Cyprus and of the publication of Minoan tholos tomb B at Apesokari, Crete, and deputy director of the NKUA excavation at Plasi, Marathon. He has published three books, six edited volumes and more than 50 papers in international journals (American Journal of Archaeology, Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Cahiers Mondes Anciens, Opuscula Atheniensia, Report of the Department of Antiquities in Cyprus) and collective volumes in international publication series (Hesperia Supplements, Aegaeum, Aegis, AURA).