Pottery everywhere

It’s the end of week two at the Paphos Theatre site here in Cyprus, and I hardly know where to begin telling you all about the interesting discoveries we have already made.  This week included the discovery of our first coin of the season, a human tooth, new areas of painted plaster and what may be a hint of the Hellenistic phase of construction, way up at the top of the theatre.  All of these things are fairly rare finds on the site. Most of what we dig up on a day to day basis is pottery.

The results of each day’s digging present themselves as buckets full of pottery. Fragments of pottery ranging in date from pre-Hellenistic all the way through to today are collected from the trenches, washed and sorted each day. With such a volume of material being collected, all the archaeologists gain a general understanding of what pottery -even broken pieces- can tell us about our site. For example, the medieval pottery discovered on site has helped develop an understanding of the pottery making workshops that use to operate on the site after the Roman theatre was abandoned.

Every day, a hundred of more pottery shards might pass through my fingers, but it’s the medieval ones that make me want to know more. Their amazing colours and designs are a testament to the talent of Paphian potters. 

-Jillian Barteaux