Kythera Island Project (KIP) study season 2004
Assessment and Analysis: Study season
Kythera Island Project had another successful season in 2004. Study of the tract material from the 1998-2001 intensive survey was completed by C. Broodbank, A. Johnston, and E. Kiriatzi, C. Pickersgill and J. Vroom, with all 9,335 sherds (dating from the Neolithic to the present) individually recorded in terms of a range of chronological, functional and technological criteria. Good progress was also made by Pickersgill on the site pottery from several Roman sites, along with further work on other prehistoric/Classical sites. Kiriatzi and Broodbank were able, by re-studying material from the 1960s Kastri excavations, to create the first coarseware typology for First, Second and Third Palace period pottery. When applied to survey material, this greatly refined the ability to date within the Second Palace period, and has clarified the nature of Third Palace material, as well as the critical question as to the degree of continuity between these periods. Some 500 objects were drawn for the final publication, including all the necessary illustrations of tract pottery and ground stone. R. Siddall, working with Kiriatzi and N. Krahtopoulou, undertook a first season of geological fieldwork and apotheke-based analysis. The primary aims were to characterise the raw materials used in the ground and chipped stone recovered in the KIP survey, to identify local sources for such material (or affirm an off-island origin), and to clarify the identification of, and variation in, the clays and tempers used in the local pottery. K. Hall (INSTAP) conserved several of the coins found by KIP. The first phase of the chemical analysis of the Kastri pottery samples taken in 1998 is due to start over the winter in the Fitch Laboratory; this will complement the already well advanced petrographic analysis, with specific attention to prehistoric fine pottery. The work will be conducted by E. Kartsonaki supervised by Kiriatzi.
Active in 2003.