This summer I had the pleasure of attending an archaeological field school in Cyprus with North Carolina State University. The program – Cyprus Archaeological Field School – is directed by two of my past professors and has been occurring yearly since 2017. I arrived in Cyprus on May 20, 2022. The island is beautiful; every turn has a clear blue ocean, incredible mountains and hillsides, or luscious forests. A pleasant surprise was that Cyprus is loaded with wild cats – there are more cats on the island than humans, in fact – and most of them are friendly. The only downside is that it was very humid, but that’s to be expected for an island near the Middle-East in June.

The archaeological site I helped excavate is called Makounta-Voules, which appears to have been the home of a copper-mining group between 5000 and 7000 years ago. They used stone tools and had a large interest in picrolite – a bright green stone – which they sculpted into figurines and pendants. In addition to picrolite, our team also searched for evidence of stone tools and pieces of pottery (also known as sherds), bone (human and non-human), and shells that were used to create jewelry.

Every morning, I woke up at 4:20 am and got on a bus with all the other students. We went straight to the site and started working right away. The entire team was divided into groups of four, with three students and one supervisor. The archaeological method of digging is very systematic; each group dug a hole that was square-shaped and 4 meters wide, known as a trench. We usually dug five centimeters down at a time across the entire surface of the trench before digging any farther. In each group, the students worked together to break up the compact dirt with a pickaxe, shovel up all the newly-made piles of loose dirt, and sift through that dirt to find artifacts. We also straightened out the walls of the trench, known as balk walls. After the team got back to the hotel and ate lunch, we spent an hour or two washing the artifacts that we dug up. This was done by scrubbing them with a toothbrush and soaking them in water. About three nights per week, we also had a lecture that was given by one of the supervisors. The topics ranged from the entire history of Cyprus to different processes and ethics in archaeology.

Every Friday we took a break from digging and went on field trips. During each trip, we visited at least one excavated archaeological site, one museum, and one local beach (except Nicosia). In Nea Paphos, we visited Kissonerga and Lemba, the Paphos museum, and Vardas beach. In Palaepaphos, we visited Prastio and Souskiou, Aphrodite’s temple, and Petra Tou Romeou beach, which is the legendary birthplace of Aphrodite. In Kourion we visited Kolossi, the Kourion museum, and Kourion beach. While in Nicosia we visited the Cyprus Museum, which was the most expansive museum of all.

Noah Barton is a senior at North Carolina State University, double-majoring in International Studies and History and minoring in Latin. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina and enjoys history, music, and traveling.

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