Town to dedicate part of new building to Davidson  project

Professor Michael Toumazou (center) in front of the new Athienou municipal building with project staffers and Davidson alumni (from left) Derek Counts ’92 and Clay Cofer ’99.

By BILL GIDUZ
Davidson College News Office

In 1990 Davidson College Classics Professor Michael Toumazou launched a modest summertime archaeological dig in his home country of Cyprus. “Naively, I thought it would be a three- to five-year project,” he recalled.

Now, 20 years later, the dedication of a new $5-million building in the Cypriot town of Athienou will highlight the sustained efforts of Toumazou and his team in illuminating 3,000 years of that town’s history. On Friday, July 3, Athienou town officials, the Cypriot Minister of Communications and Works, other dignitaries and legions of proud citizens will gather to dedicate the opening of a museum in the Kallinikion Municipal Hall of Athienou.

The large, modern structure serves several purposes. The museum will showcase 120 artifacts found mostly at Toumazou’s dig three miles from town, including limestone sculptures, two gold coins, pottery, and terracotta figurines of warriors, chariots and horses. The site contains tombs, a settlement and a sanctuary.

The museum will also house icons in the Byzantine tradition painted by the renowned monk Kallinikos, an Athienou native. In addition to the donating his artwork, the 90-year-old artist donated the land for the building, and it is named the Kallinikion Municipal Hall in his honor.

Also on display will be mosaics and frescoes by two other contemporary local artists. Finally, the museum will contain exhibitions of the town’s four historically important commercial enterprises–lace making, mule driving, cheese production and bread baking.

The museum is constructed in child-friendly fashion, Dr. Toumazou said, and is expected to host visits of school groups from across the island nation.

Perhaps most importantly to Dr. Toumazou, the building also includes a large, climate controlled, wireless enabled, basement laboratory for cleaning, photographing, cataloging, and storing the artifacts found by his team. For many years they did that in empty houses around town, enduring heat and dust and the bother of setting up and tearing down in different locales after every season’s work.

“The archeology lab is a dream come true for me,” said Dr. Toumazou. “It was a major undertaking by the municipality.”

The primary impetus for the building, which took 10 years to plan and construct, was Toumazou’s archaeological work. From the beginning of the dig in 1990, town officials and citizens have been supportive of the Davidson-led effort.

In addition to funding from Davidson College and the National Science Foundation-Research Experience for Undergraduates program, Dr. Toumazou’s team has received goods and services each summer from Athienou’s citizens and merchants. A local bakery provides an unlimited supply of bread. The local dairy producers association provides its famed Halloumi cheese, and the town provides free housing, gas for the team’s van, and unlimited logistical support.

From its humble beginnings, the Athienou Archaeological Project (AAP) has developed into a major ongoing undertaking, with up to 50 people working on it each season. It is now one of the largest and longest-lived archaeological projects on the island. Moreover, AAP has the distinction of being the only foreign project on Cyprus led by a native Cypriot.

In its 20 years, the AAP has involved a total of more than 350 students, amateurs and professional archaeologists from all across America. The professionals include specialists in areas like ancient glass, metallurgy and geophysics. More than 50 of the undergraduates have been Davidson students who have conducted work and research there for course credit. The dig also involves

Two former students have become permanent project staff members. Associate Director Derek Counts ’92, now an art history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, was a volunteer in the first year of excavations in 1990 and has been consistently involved since 1995. Assistant Director Clay Cofer ’99, a Ph.D. candidate in archeology at Bryn Mawr College, has been with the project since 1997.

Working from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., diggers excavate the dirt sector by sector, recording every detail of what they uncover. In all Dr. Toumazou and his team have found and cataloged more than 4,000 artifacts, not counting human bones and pottery shards. Government regulations require that all finds be sent to a district museum in Larnaca, so the items in the new Athienou municipal museum will technically be on loan from the Larnaca facility.

This summer, however, is a “study” summer, and involves no new digging. There are about a dozen professionals on site now reviewing the finds of the past few years and preparing publications about them. Toumazou will soon publish an edited volume of 20 articles about various aspects of the project, including an article on soil chemistry by Davidson Professor of Chemistry Ruth Beeston.

With a new laboratory and museum dedicated mainly to his project, Dr. Toumazou recognizes he’s now in it for the long haul. “In fact, we’ve barely scratched the surface at this point,” he said. “I’ll definitely be here for many more years to come!”