​Over the next few weeks, we’ll be highlighting some new and old members of the Paphos Theatre Project, showcasing their careers and various interests. Kicking off the series is our site director, Dr. Craig Barker.

Craig has been a part of the project since its inception in 1995. After becoming director in 2007, the project changed its focus from the theatre to the broader northeastern quarter of the ancient city with excavations of the nymphaeum and the Roman road network.

How has your career changed since 1995?

“In my first year, I was an honours student at USYD. I went to university intending to become an Australian contract archaeologist. Working on this project changed the focus of my studies. It led to more focus on Mediterranean and public engagement archaeology, which has resulted in me working at the University of Sydney and the Chau Chak Wing Museum, finding ways to present research to the broader public. I hope that we are able to do the same with the Paphos project and make our exciting finds accessible to all.”

With more than 5000 items in inventory and well over 100,000 sherds found, sorted and bagged, one the largest challenges for the Paphos Theatre Archaeological Project has been maintaining an orderly system to enable team members and researchers to access finds.

Although all inventoried items and special finds are sent to Paphos Museum, there is the need for proper storage for thousands of archaeological contexts worth of finds for future research of amphorae, roof tiles, cooking pots, and imported Ottoman glazed ware amongst a myriad of subjects.

So in 2019 the Paphos Theatre Archaeological Project acquired a new storage facility. Lead by the indefatigable Julie Thompson-Moltzen the team have cheerfully built shelves, re-boxed deposits, inventoried locations and lifted and moved many, many boxes of finds. In coming days Julie will post some photos of the team working on storage!

​If you would like to help us with this important part of the archaeological process we are naming individual shelving units after our supporters. Yes, you too can help support our project, by 'helping to hold up' material found on site, by naming the shelving unit after yourself or a loved one (partner, friend, pet!). Donations of $40AUD or 25 Euro and over can be made to the project here (just mark it as a donation for 'shelving unit' and either your name or the person you would like to be named on the shelves). Thank you!!

Often when I see an interesting object from antiquity in a glass case at a museum, my first thoughts are of the time it was made; who it belonged to; and what this object meant to them. A tangible link to a person who lived a long time ago. Someone you will never meet, but you feel somehow connected to, through that very object, in the here and now of 21st century life. 

What I hadn’t considered previously is the even stronger connection that an archaeologist could feel towards something they had discovered either personally or as part of a team.

Back in Week 1 when I first started work in Trench 19G I noticed that a team mate (John) took extra care to check though the quantities of dirt we were removing from its surface. Using the pointed end of his trowel to fossick through bucketloads of dirt and rocks as they were tipped into a wheelbarrow prior to being trundled off and deposited on a spoil heap, John explained that he was extra vigilant now, having very nearly missed an important find a few years earlier at this very site. A terracotta-looking Hellenistic head in the style of Alexander the Great.

A few weeks later, I was assisting at the sorting table - just across from the conservator’s desk, when our conservator (Grace) was showing those nearby a small head she had just glued together. About the same size as a walnut shell, it was in remarkably good condition with clearly delineated facial features and curly hair, and I found myself wondering, “Was this the very same head John had mentioned in Week 1?”

The short answer is yes. And he was most pleased to see it again – now glued together in one piece.

Later that afternoon our fresco specialist, artist and archaeologist Diana Wood-Conroy came to see it and she too was delighted. Holding it briefly triggered a memory of the season it had been dug up (2014) and an amusing anecdote about something that had happened as she was recording this particular find by drawing it. Deep in concentration, a bird had landed on her head – something she said had never happened to her before or since.

Which brings us back full circle to the point made at the beginning of this post – the strength of the connection an archaeologist or volunteer could feel towards something they had discovered or worked on, either personally as part of a team. Neither Diana nor John had seen this object in the five years since it was unearthed, but their memories, and their connection to it, were part of Alexander’s story now. 

​And he a part of theirs.
 
- Geraldine Higginson