Francesca Meneghetti CAARI Lecture

Clearing the dust from legacy material. Renewed studies on the Israeli excavations at Athienou-Bamboulari tis Koukounninas.
Between 1971 and 1972, an Israeli mission led by a team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem excavated the Late Bronze Age site of Athienou-Bamboulari tis Koukounninas in eastern Cyprus. Dated between the 16th and 12th centuries BCE, the site is crucial for understanding the Cypriot hinterland and material culture during the Late Bronze Age. Since the final publication of the excavation, the large amounts of pottery (with 10,000 vessels estimated from one phase alone) and metallurgical debris have attracted scholarly attention and created heated debate around the nature of the site. However, the publication only briefly showcases the complicated stratigraphy, the architectural remains and the material found. This issue, in turn, poses more questions than answers. More than 50 years after the conclusion of the excavations, the lecture will present the preliminary work done up to this point on Stratum III, the lengthiest habitational phase of the site, and its material, in particular the so-called miniature pottery, as part of my CAARI Peltenburg Postdoctoral fellowship. The hope is to shed some light on a rich corpus of legacy material that remains poorly known.