Cypriot Cultural Details ed. by Iosif Hadjikyriako & Mia Gaia Trentin, and: POCA (Postgraduate Cypriot Archaeology) 2012 ed. by Hartmut Matthäus, Bärbel Morstadt & Christian Vonhoff (review)

These two volumes present the proceedings of, respectively, the 10th and 12th symposia entitled Postgraduates of Cypriot Archaeology (POCA). The earlier, POCA 10, was held in October 2010 in Venice, Italy; POCA 12 was held in November 2012 in Erlangen, Germany. The first POCA conference took place in Edinburgh, Scotland in 2001, and has been held annually ever since in various cities throughout Europe. As the title signals, most papers presented at POCA gatherings stem from research by postgraduates, PhD students and young (post-PhD) scholars involved in the study of all aspects of Cypriot archaeology, history, anthropology, architecture and art history, from the Epipalaeolithic to the modern era. The studies presented in these volumes are generally not for the uninitiated in Cypriot culture and material culture; indeed, some are so specialised they are not easily digested even by initiates.

The shorter, POCA 2010 volume contains 12 papers selected from 30 given at the conference; many focus on the exchange of goods, ideas, religious practices and people involving Cyprus and/or the city of Venice, from the Prehistoric Bronze Age to the Ottoman period. The longer, POCA 2012 volume contains 17 papers that cover a wide spectrum of research (e.g. site reports, mortuary studies, architecture, sculpture, other arts and crafts, religious studies), from the Prehistoric Bronze Age to the present (traditional and modern Cypriot clothing). The quality of papers in both volumes is diverse, not unlike those in any conference proceedings.

None of the five editors involved is a native speaker of English, and the level and quality of the English in the papers varies. Particularly in the POCA 10 volume, at times the English is so poor that one might justifiably complain about it. This is not the case for the POCA 12 volume thanks to the efforts of Christian Vonhoff (one of the editors) and Emily Schalk, who proofread the manuscripts. Be that as it may, English speakers should be grateful they can read these papers in their own language.

It would be pointless to attempt to comment usefully on 29 different papers. Moreover, given my own limitations, this review concentrates on a selective set of prehistoric and protohistoric papers, with a few others that merit some mention. The full table of contents for each volume is provided on the websites listed after each citation (above).

A series of three papers (one in POCA 10, two in POCA 12) involve the work of an Italian team headed by Luca Bombardieri at or in the region around the multi-terraced, settlement/ cemetery site of Erimi Laonin tou Porakou, in the Kouris River Valley in southern Cyprus. Since its inception following a 2007 survey in the region, this project has produced a steady stream of detailed preliminary reports, primarily in conference proceedings and chapters in edited volumes. In the POCA 2010 volume, Bombardieri, Chelazzi and Amadio discuss the workshop complex (an area extending over about 20 x 15 m) at Laonin tou Porakou with respect to its water-based activities. This complex consists of a system of deep basins carved from the limestone bedrock at different depths and connected by a series of 'flow channels' that delimit five discrete working areas. The working installations in the complex suggest production involving liquid substances in the basins, which have a capacity of some 8000 litres. Palaeobotanic evidence (from pithoi) reveals an array of plants characterised by their dyeing properties, and leads the authors to suggest the workshop complex may have been involved in textile processing, in particular dyeing...