33past horizons Aphrodite's Ancestors: the Prastion- Mesorotsos Archaeological Expedition, Cyprus Text by Andrew P. McCarthy Images by Andrew P. McCarthy and Ben Blakeman You could be forgiven for assuming that we already know a great deal about the cult of the goddess Aphrodite, its origins in Near Eastern mythology, and the early history of the important sanctuary at Old Paphos ( modern Kouklia) in western Cyprus. Our understanding of the Late Bronze Age ( ca. 1700- 1050 BC) temple in Paphos, near the traditional location of Aphrodite's birth, comes to us from ancient textual sources as well as over two hundred years of archaeological excavation at the sanctuary itself. Indeed, we do understand much about the nature of the cult of Aphrodite in its mature form, but we have very little information on the preceding social context in which this pervasive myth began. While Early ( ca. 2400- 2000 BC) Middle ( ca. 2000- 1700 BC) and Late Bronze Age settlement sites have been excavated in Cyprus, Paphos and its hinterland are conspicuously lacking investigation of the Early and Middle Bronze Ages. Without an understanding of the social developments that led up to the urbanisation of Paphos in the Late Bronze Age, it is difficult to assess the processes that resulted in the establishment of one of the most important urban centres and best- known holy places in the ancient world. continued ? ? Map of western Cyprus. Prastion- Mesorotsos is just 15km up the Dhiarizos River from Old Paphos and the Sanctuary of Aphrodite

past horizons34 New investigations at the previously unstudied site of Prastion- Mesorotsos, approximately 15km up the Dhiarizos River from Old Paphos, seek to add to our understanding of the prehistory of western Cyprus by filling a gap in our archaeological knowledge. Students and scholars from the University of Edinburgh have worked for decades in western Cyprus, excavating settlements from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic ( ca. 4000- 2500 BC) and the transitional Philia ( ca. 2500- 2350 BC) periods in particular. While previous projects have added a great deal to our knowledge of the prehistory of the island, the transition into the Bronze Age and subsequent developments is unclear, and as yet no site has been excavated that spans from the Chalcolithic through the Bronze Age. As continuous occupation throughout this transition is so rare, it has prompted many to hypothesise that immigrants or influences from Anatolia or Syria supplanted the indigenous cultures on the island, and that this influx brought not only a new economy and society, but also ideas of ritual and cult. As well- known as Paphos itself is, the surrounding region is oddly understudied and many prehistoric periods are largely unknown in western Cyprus. Prastion- Mesorotsos is situated at a crossroads in the landscape and may represent a link between western Cyprus and the more intensively studied cultures of eastern Cyprus. This gives students a real opportunity to make new discoveries relating to how Paphos came to be such an important urban and ritual centre. The 2008 Prastion- Mesorotsos team consisted of undergraduate and postgraduate students, professional topographers, geophysics experts and academic archaeologists. The project was run as a field school, with team members coming from the UK, Ireland, the USA and Canada. Students were involved in all aspects of the project, including fieldwalking and surface collection, geological surveying, drawing and recording, and processing of finds. In addition to the project activities, there were several organised field trips designed to give perspective to the changing environment and society throughout the long history of the site's occupation. The expedition's first season applied a variety of non- intrusive archaeological methods to assess the likelihood that an intact sequence spanning the elusive Chalcolithic- Bronze Age transition exists, which can be investigated in subsequent years by excavation. The main data collection strategy used in the 2008 season involved team members walking transects across the entirety of the site in order to establish the extent, the location and concentration of artefact types and the density of artefacts relating to particular periods. In the area of highest density, a 2m x 2m grid system was employed, which allowed relative ease of collection and provided high resolution in distribution maps. For the rest of the site, which had lower density due to lack of plough cultivation, individual GPS ( Global Positioning Satellite) waypoints were taken for each artefact to sub- metre accuracy. This produced an accurate picture of the distribution of artefacts by type and date for the whole of the site. As these survey data deal largely with the spatial At 10 hectares Prastion- Many prehistoric periods are largely unknown in western Cyprus