The University of Sydney Archaeological Excavations of the Paphos Theatre Site, Cyprus

There are a number of other projects in Cyprus with excavation blogs.  These include: Lindy Crewe of the University of Manchester's Bronze Age project at Kissonerga-Skalia near Paphos (http://digcypruskissonerga.wordpress.com/) and the Pyla-Koustsopetria Archaeological Project's Field Blog (http://www.und.nodak.edu/instruct/wcaraher/PKAPBlogAggregator.html)
It is a great way to keep up to date with some of the many archaeological projects in Cyprus - we think it is a great way to learn more about Cypriot archaeology.

Some people may not be aware of the 3D digital surveying project carried out on the Paphos theatre by STARC at The Cyprus Institute.  Here is their website describing the preliminary work: http://starc.cyi.ac.cy/node/328
It is exciting for the Paphos project to be involved and it is an exciting sample of new directions in Cypriot archaeology that will become more commonplace in the future.

This coming Saturday (7 August) marks the first meeting of team members based in Sydney - it is a stage that marks the real beginning of the process of the season, as student and volunteer team members get to meet one another for the first time and find out about their roles and responsibilities once we get to Cyprus.  Its always an exciting phase as people begin to get their heads around the work they will be doing.  In the meantime I am told it is only 8 weeks away which means there is still much preparation to be done.

Hi all and welcome to the first blog for the Australian archaeological team working in Paphos.

This blog is intended to be an education blog for primary and secondary school students (and interested members of the public!) to learn more about the actual process of working on an archaeological excavation, so please post questions and comments to the blog entries, or email the excavation director at craig.barker@sydney.edu.au with questions, and we shall endeavour to answer them.  The blog will begin properly when the field season begins on 5 October, and during the five weeks of digging we shall be updating the blog daily, with entries from various team members who will discuss the dig from their perspective - as a student, as a volunteer, as a field archaeologist, as a specialist.  We will try to answer any questions you may have as we go along, and will post pictures and videos sometime too.  It is the best way we can think of to share the experience of working on an archaeological dig.

As it is only July at this point, we are still in the process of putting together the dig.  It can often involve many logistical problems, compounded by the fact that most of the team will have to fly from Sydney in Australia all the way to Cyprus.  Blogs will be less regular in the lead up, but please do post questions and we will answer them regularly.

We hope that you enjoy sharing the experience of "working" on an archaeological dig, and this is able to give you a small window into the world of archaeology.

Craig Barker
Excavation Co-Director