The Iron Age

After the IId destruction the Stele Building may have been abandoned and the site was in any case flattened in Hellenistic and Byzantine times, but some later Iron Age occupation persisted in phase IIe to the SE and SW of the building itself where the external ground-level was lower. Subsequent building in phase IIf was associated with a couple of rudimentary kilns, one of which contained a mass of very homogeneous ceramics in the style known in Cyprus as "White-Painted IV" and "Plain White IV”. Petrographic analysis by Carl Knappett confirmed that these ceramics were made on site. Current estimates for the date of this style hover around 700-650 BC. The stratification here is very compressed – about 50 cm for 500 years – and to explore what went on at the site in the obscure half-millennium before 650 BC we needed to look elsewhere, and turned our attention to the centre of the site.

In 1995-1996 a sounding into Iron Age deposits south of the church foundations had encountered no architecture for a depth of 1.5 m, but rather an open space into which large storage pits had been sunk. Assuming that some associated building could not be too far away, we decided to enlarge this sounding to the east, to tie the sequence into some architecture. In the event the architecture remained elusive. The results of work in 2007-2009 reveal three main stages in the formation of this part of the site. The latest stage of pre-Classical occupation is represented by an open space (called by us Surface 1) which hosted two or three small ovens, two or more deep circular storage pits, and one very much larger rectangular storage pit in K14d with a capacity of about 35 cubic metres. The ceramics indicate that this occupation is roughly contemporary with phase IIf in the NW corner, so around 700-650 BC. It was preceded by an intermediate stage lasting some centuries in which the area of K14 was an open space, broken by an occasional small pit but no other features: this space stretched for over 10 m from west to east, and at least 6 m from north to south. Within this stage at least three consecutive surfaces are recognizable, separated by bands of packing, and together making a depth of some 1.5 m.

The lowest of these surfaces, Surface 4, seems to date on ¹⁴C evidence to the 11th century, while a single sample for Surface 3 hints at a 9th century date. From these levels come local ceramics, but also increasingly as time passes there are occasional imports or imitations of exotic wares, such as Black on Red or Bichrome, bearing witness to the re-establishment of cultural relations with the Mediterranean region. Going further down, the third stage is a sequence of architectural phases sealed by the packing for Surface 4. The latest of these (Phase 5) has only fragments of stone foundation to show for itself; but immediately beneath this, rather than the expected stone wall foundations, we came across a double ring of post-holes, appearing to belong to a structure some 8 m in diameter.

Regrettably, the continuation of this ring eastwards, where we hoped to follow it, had been cut away by pits of different periods, including the immense Surface 1 grain facility in K14d, so that we cannot say if it was really circular (and not, for instance, apsidal).

The ceramics indicate that this Phase 6 is approximately contemporary with the later phases of the Stele Building (IIc/d).  It may not be coincidental that the Eastern Building there was not rebuilt in phase IId, leaving an open space, and over this, spreading west to the space immediately overlying the destroyed eastern rooms of the IId Stele Building (Rm d5) there was a surface with numerous post-holes.

In K14a and the west half of K14b our excavations were taken down below Phase 6 only in the space to the west of the post-hole ring. Here there was a tight sequence of architectural phases, associated with the SW corner of a house on the NE side of the sounding separated by a short distance from the NE corner of another house on the SW side, the walls of which had originally been exposed in 1996. The spaces outside these two buildings were taken up with a sequence of occupation surfaces, with associated storage pits (one yielding several grindstones) and fire installations, and, in the earliest phase reached, with a patch of stone paving. This has all the appearance of a regular domestic quarter, and the ceramics from the lowest level reached seem to be equivalent of the Level III pottery at the NW quarter, with no sign of the Level II painted jars.