Looking through the rocks. Geophysical research on the agora of the ancient city: Nea Paphos
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2016-08-17

Ancient Paphos was given enhanced protection status in November 2010 by UNESCO's Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property. Sustaining the outstanding universal value of the site, the (re)construction of the cityscape for example is one of the prominent issues in archaeological fieldwork. Hard terrain, tightly compacted layers of rubble mixed with the ground, stone debris, an unclarified modern context without a mapping of recent building activities and infrastructural supply are part of the complicated local setting. The paper under discussion will present a work-in-progress case study of a combined archaeological, geological and geophysical research at Nea Paphos in Cyprus. Special emphasis will be laid on the ongoing process of finding methods as well as practical solutions and outlining workflows in a surrounding of forced public and scientific interest. Due to permission, money and time, non-invasive geophysical methods get more and more important to calculate workloads and, at least, the financial budget for archaeological research. In 2011, the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, started the PAPHOS AGORA PROJECT aiming to work out the urban plan of the site mainly focusing e.g. on the localization and spatial organization of the ancient agora, both in Hellenistic and Roman times. For the present interdisciplinary work of an international team include the prospection of the terrain with geoelectricity, georadar and geomagnetic. One of the main problems is to separate stone structures–so artificial walls from the natural level of rocks on the bottom and the pebbles layers over the built structures in an area known for field cultivation and used for an English military road.

Martina Siefert, Ewdoksia Papuci-Władyka, Tomasz Kalicki, Sebastian Adlung, Michaelis Antonakis, Nikola Babucic, Joanna Krupa, Artur Buszek, Sławomir Chwałek, Dawid Święch, Tomasz Herbich, Łukasz Miszk