The idea for the creation of the present volume sprang during an international conference held at the Archaeological Research Unit of the University of Cyprus, during 3–5 June 2013. The meeting was organised as part of “Moulding Expressions of Culture: The Terracotta Figurines from the House of Orpheus, Nea Paphos” (MEC–HOT), a project funded by the Anastasios G. Leventis Foundation via the University of Cyprus. Titled “Hellenistic and Roman Terracottas: Mediterranean Networks and Cyprus” and held under the auspices of the Association for Coroplastic Studies, the conference aimed at providing a broader context with regard to the typology, production and use of Hellenistic and Roman terracottas, against which those from the House of Orpheus at Nea Paphos could be studied and contextualised.
However, the present volume should not be seen as the overdue publication of the conference proceedings. In fact, the Nicosia meeting was intended as a first gathering for the discussion of material from a wide geographical spectrum, tackling, amongst other things, issues of cross-cultural importance, and using a variety of approaches and methodologies. The ultimate intention was the creation of a collection of peer-reviewed studies that could be used as a reference work for the study and analysis of Hellenistic and Roman terracottas; and, towards this goal, further studies were added to the volume, over and above those presented during the conference. We hope that we have succeeded in offering to our readers, and to Coroplastic Studies, and Classical Archaeology in general, a useful work-tool for the years to come.
This volume could not have materialised without the generosity of the Anastasios G. Leventis Foundation that funded the project. We are grateful to Prof. Jaimee Uhlenbrock (State University of New York at New Paltz and the Association of Coroplastic Studies) for supporting the project in a variety of ways. We sincerely thank Dr Emma Saunders for taking on the onerous task of language editing and standardisation, before we edited the chapters, both before and after the peer-review process. We are particularly thankful to our authors who, with patience and enthusiasm, bore with us through this long but fascinating process. We are most grateful to the anonymous Brill reviewer, who made a number of important suggestions for improvement, both with regard to individual chapters and to the volume as a whole; and to Dr Christine E. Morris (The University of Dublin, Trinity College) who read the introduction to this volume and made several useful comments. Finally, we owe a debt of gratitude to the Brill personnel, who have been unfailingly helpful and supportive throughout the preparation of this volume.
The abbreviations used are those of the American Journal of Archaeology. In cases where such an abbreviation does not exist, the full name of the journal or the series is given.
Giorgos Papantoniou
Demetrios Michaelides
Maria Dikomitou-Eliadou