Three Cyprus Things Thursday

Here’s a short three things Thursday as we wrap up our week of field work at Polis. Thing the First Whenever I’m at Polis I think of walls. Partly this is because my run takes me past the site of A.H9 in the Princeton grid where the course of the Late Cypro-Classical (4th century) fortification wall runs. The wall is preserved only at the level of the socle made of rounded river stones set in a simple mortar. The superstructure of the wall would have presumably been mud brick with ashlar reinforcement at key places. The wall in A.H9 loosely followed the course of a low ridge that bordered a ravine to the west. In this area, the wall turns the west and presumably proceeded along the northern slope of the city above the coastal plain. Looking at this wall as a socle, I got to wondering whether this would have been wide enough (approximately 3 m) to support any substantial mud brick superstructure. Perhaps it was topped by a wooden palisade or similar arrangement to extend its height and…