This book would not have been possible without the support and guidance of my doctoral supervisors Prof. Dr. Franz Alto Bauer and Prof. Dr. Albrecht Berger, whose unfailing enthusiasm, advice, and instruction encouraged a well-rounded approach to late antique art history, archaeology, and Byzantine Studies. My doctoral dissertation at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, was entitled More than a church: The archaeology of late antique basilicas and economic production in Cyprus, and was defended in July 2021. Particularly fruitful were excursions in Cyprus, Türkiye, Israel, and Italy with Dr. Bauer and members of the LMU Spätantike und Byzantinische Kunstgeschichte department (in particular, Katharina Palmberger, Anna Sitz, Sabine Feist, and Prolet Decheva). I would also like to thank Dr. Michael Given for his enthusiastic discussions and anthropological insight, and my third examiner Dr. Chryssa Ranoutsaki.
The Department of Antiquities of Cyprus showed enormous generosity in permitting my access not only to closed sites, field notes, and photographic archives, but to the complete material of two basilicas. I would particularly like to thank Dr. Marina Solomidou-Ieronymidou, Dr. Despo Pilides, and Dr. Eftychia Zachariou, for their help and guidance. The hospitality and company of the staff of the Cyprus Museum, Episkopi Museum, and Limassol Archaeological Museum were very appreciated, and I would specifically like to thank Yiannis Violaris and Eleni Procopiou for their recollections. Kind invitations to excavate at Katalymmata ton Plakoton for three seasons and Fabrika Hill in Nea Paphos in 2023 were particularly enlightening, not only for the book but as a complement to my archaeological field experience in the UK, the US, and Austria. Becoming more familiar with a 7th c. basilica’s material provided a better framework against which to analyse the late antique artefacts of the other Cypriot sites. I appreciate the numerous meetings, dinners, and generous access to the material and notes of the episcopal basilica in Amathous.
This book was particularly assisted by many stays in the home-away-from-home that is CAARI: combining not only accommodation with a Cyprus-specific library but with a community of experts in many fields. I would like to thank Vathoulla Moustoukki for her hospitality. Throughout these research visits, enormous help and new information was provided to my project through new connections and unexpected exchanges with Charles Stewart, Demetrios Michaelides, Erin Gibson, Cassie Donnelly, Peter Cosyns, Joanna Smith, Annemarie Weyl Carr, Barbara Kowalzig, Thea Christoforou, Elisabeth Ilgner, Doria Nicolaou, Andreas Foulias, Anthoulla Vassiliades, Ian Randall, and Young Richard Kim. Of these, those who have spontaneously accompanied various road trips across Cyprus to mines and the Karpas (Cassie, Barbara, Ian, Elisabeth, and Young), I am also grateful. I appreciate the help of the librarians of the Institute of Classical Studies and the Warburg Institute in London. New light has been shed on many aspects of this book through conversations with David Mattingly, Craig Barker, Franz Alto Bauer, Daniel Reynolds, Smadar Gabrieli, Tamara Lewit, John Haldon, Nikos Tsivikis, Kristina Sessa, Ian Wood, Kim Bowes, Leslie Brubaker, Matthew Harpster, and Alkiviadis Ginalis have shed new light on many aspects of this book. Some of these have taken place in extraordinary places: a train to Canterbury, the University of Sydney, the top of Aphrodite’s Rock, Lake Eğirdir in Türkiye, Inisheer (Aran Islands) off the coast of Ireland, and the café under St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London. Special thanks go to Smadar for her insight into the ceramics of the two basilicas and conversations of late antique Cyprus, and for many other areas of advice. The support and direction of James Crow, Ine Jacobs, Shannan Stewart, and Georgios Deligiannakis, when I was not yet a Byzantine archaeologist and researching the Hellenistic period instead, was very welcome. I am also grateful for the advice and feedback from many colleagues at Koç University’s Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations in Istanbul and Philipps-Universität Marburg, particularly Beate Böhlendorf-Arslan, Maréva U, Elisa Galardi, and Lora Webb, among others met in Istanbul.
The conferences and seminars hosted by the University of Cyprus and the Department of Antiquities have provided worlds of new information over the last five years, and I am thankful for those which I have been able to attend. Many thanks go to the scholars met through these various events, whose input and advice have been very helpful: Tassos Papacostas, Athanasios Vionis, Luca Zavagno, Simon James, Claire Balandier, Stella Demesticha, Sophocles Hadjisavvas, Demetrios Michaelides, Tina Najbjerg, Joan Connelly, Nikolas Bakirtzis, Fryni Hadjichristophi, John Leonard, Marcus Rautman, Richard Maguire, Justin Leidwanger, Lina Kassianidou, Bill Caraher, John Lund, Charalambous Bakirtzis, Craig Barker, and Tomasz Waliszewski.
I would like to thank my family in particular for their generous emotional, intellectual and financial support during my studies from Champaign to Edinburgh to Munich to Nicosia. For their patience, proofreading, encouragement, and interest, I am grateful.
For their help in deciphering handwritten Greek field notes, I would like to thank Melina Vogiatzi and Leah Rotsia. Reconstructions and editing from Matilde Grimaldi, Christine Knight, Lloyd Bosworth, and Jean Humbert are to be commended. Special thanks go to those without whose friendship and love (sometimes manifest through proofreading and feedback) this book would not have been completed: Nicole Huber, Jacqueline Reddington, Katharina Palmberger, Ally Young, Avery Schael, and Jane Freeborn. Needless to say, the errors and oversights in this book are my own.
Finally, many thanks go to Luke Lavan, Michael Mulryan, Marcella Mulder, Dirk Bakker, and the anonymous readers at Brill Publishers.