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04/07/11
Excavations are now complete and the team is in the planning stages for studies and publication.
The Settlement
While the Souskiou cemeteries are widely known, the settlement attracted little interest because it was felt to be too eroded and presumably lacked the valued objects that typify the cemeteries. It is located on the prominent, narrow Laona ridge and is largely oriented to the south, hidden on slopes facing away from the Dhiarizos valley. It is nevertheless positioned at a nexus of communication routes along the coast and between the coast and the mountains. Sophocles Hadjisavvas was the first to systematically survey the site in 1975 when he recorded heaps of stones marking the position of destroyed houses.
The course of discoveries at the settlement can be monitored by annual reports from 2005. As of 2009, we have identified a concentration of Middle Chalcolithic activities that left visible traces in an area 160 x 300m on the East Ridge, Saddle and South Slope, and intermittent traces in a 300m long strip along the 150m contour of the West Ridge. Occupants seem to have preferred areas of least gradient for settlement. The South Slope, as elsewhere along the ridge, has a stepped surface formed by nearly horizontal bands of tabular limestone outcrop that split transversely into regular blocks suggesting walls. These steps form natural terraces that may have served as platforms for building purposes. In addition, there are some terrace walls of uncertain date, conceivably Classical or later. We estimate an overall settlement size of c.2.2 ha.
Curvilinear structures were placed on the crest and base of the East Ridge, and along contours below the crest of the West Ridge. In general, the structures were cut back into the hillside and it is assumed they were founded on modest terraces. Throughout, the finds indicate a multifunctional agricultural settlement. They include adzes, axes, hammerstones, pestles, rubbers and querns. However, the settlement is distinguished from others of the period by the proliferation of picrolite wasters, the imported stone which was used to make cruciform figurines. The eroded remnants of a workshop were located on the West Ridge. Here we found a dense concentration of wasters, including unaltered raw material, chips and partly worked objects together with chipped stone that may have been used as tools in the preparation of roughouts. Nearby were partly finished figurines. For the first time we have detailed evidence for the manufacture of the celebrated figurines that occur so frequently in the surrounding cemeteries and the many Chalcolithic sites of Cyprus. Souskiou settlement seems to have been a special centre for the manufacture of these figurines and other body ornaments for display, especially in funerary rituals.