Friends of ASOR present the next webinar of the 2024-2025 season on January 22, 2025, at 2:00 pm EST, presented by Dr. Lindy Crewe. This webinar will be free and open to the public. Registration through Zoom (with a valid email address) is required. This webinar will be recorded and all registrants will be sent a recording link in the days following the webinar.

The last phase of the Middle Bronze Age on Cyprus (c. 1750–1650 BC) saw a number of dramatic changes, both in settlement patterns and structure, with many sites abandoned and new sites founded near the coast. At the exceptional long-lived coastal Bronze Age site of Kissonerga-Skalia near Paphos, a settlement established at the transition to the Early Bronze Age (c. 2400 BC), the site was completely restructured during this time and earlier domestic buildings were built over with an industrial architectural array installed in their place. This was only occupied for one or two generations before Kissonerga-Skalia was abandoned for good. Ongoing excavations are revealing a number of large pyrotechnical features and associated finds within this ‘monumental’ complex dating to the transition from the Middle–Late Bronze Age, a period during which we see the first moves towards urbanism and the integration of Cyprus into eastern Mediterranean trading networks. One of these features, contained within a finely built courtyard, has been interpreted as a ‘drying kiln’ used in the production of beer. The function of the others remains ambiguous, but they may have been used for production of an organic compound or for cooking communally. This lecture will explore how we can interpret this evidence for large-scale production and construction and consider how these features may relate to the desire of all or part of the community at Kissonerga-Skalia to take part in wider Mediterranean social interactions and trade.

Dr Lindy Crewe has been the Director of CAARI since 2017. Prior to this, she was Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Manchester, UK. Her research focuses on Cypriot prehistory and international interconnections, with a particular interest in the Chalcolithic and the Bronze Age. She is currently directing excavations at the Early–Middle Bronze Age settlement of Kissonerga-Skalia near Paphos. She is the author of two monographs, three edited volumes and over 30 articles, on topics including settlement at Late Bronze Age Enkomi and the Chalcolithic cemeteries at Souskiou. Her most recent work is a volume resulting from a conference organised by CAARI and the British Museum (with co-editors T. Kiely and A. Reeve) entitled ‘Empire and Excavation: Critical Perspectives on Archaeology in British-period Cyprus, 1878–1960’, which will be published in early 2025. She first came to Cyprus and CAARI 30 years ago as an undergraduate student from Australia to excavate at Marki-Alonia and became passionate about the archaeology of the island, spending considerable time staying at CAARI for her doctoral research and beyond.

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