Working at a small local business at home, through my work we often partner with other local businesses, a lot of these being breweries. Anytime we went to restaurants or driving around town I would see advertisements for Keo, which is made in Limassol. However, Keo is distributed all over the world, it is still very interesting that they chose Cyprus as its home base. Keo was founded in 1927 and started as a small winery, the name coming from the Greek abbreviation for “Cypriot Wine Company”. As the winery grew, the original founder invited beer specialists from Czechoslovakia and began producing beer around 1951. Keo is a corn based beer, giving it a light color and flavor, very much it’s own. Keo is also bottled unpasteurized, as the company wanted to keep the flavor as original as possible. Which has dubbed it, “the taste of Cyprus”. Now a very large company, Keo also produces, water, juice, and other forms of liquor. (The Saint Nicholas water that you see everywhere is produced by Keo). The factory supplies a large amount if jobs on the island, and they produce and ship over 30,000 hectoliters a month. Keo also has created a large tourism market for beer loving Europeans. While Keo could always move production elsewhere, Keeping the factory on the island creates a sense of pride for the locals, and you can find Keo wherever you go.

At the edge of a village 11 kilometers from Limassol stands the medieval Kolossi Castle.

Most of our study in Cyprus revolves around the Hellenistic and earlier; the Vigla site, after all, is Hellenistic, and our emphasis throughout the course in Cyprus has been on antiquity. We’re looking for the footprints of Alexander’s successors, after all, and Cyprus was a militarily and economically strategic island. So it makes sense that a castle built over a thousand years after the Antigonid and Ptolemaic dynastic struggles would be an outlier in our tours of Paphos, Kurion, and Kition.

As a budding medievalist, however, I was stoked. Familiar names like Issac Komnenos, Richard I, and Guy de Luisignan, Joan of England and Berengaria of Navarre– these were figures whose stories feature across my studies of the medieval Mediterranean. Groups like the Hospitallers and Templars, though not my favorite religious armed gangs, I was at least acquainted with.

Cyprus has always been an important and contested place. Like Sicily, another borderland island, Cyprus saw the flux of imperial influence and conquest. Many of the players are the same: Richard had just finished rescuing his sister Joan from Sicily when many of the ships in his fleet crashed on Cyprus. Isaac Komnenos took many of the survivors captive, so Richard waged war on Isaac and eventually captured and plundered the island.

After Richard sold Cyprus to the Templars and they returned it to him, Richard then sold the island to Guy de Luisignan, the failing King of Jerusalem. Cyprus thus became one of the Crusader States with a Frankish Roman Catholic ruling minority.

Kolossi Castle was built in 1210 by the Knights Hospitaller as a military fortification, and it’s clear from its no-nonsense appearance that Kolossi was meant for war, not pleasure. It’s a relatively plain looking keep, three stories, square, with an excellent view of the surrounding area.

Our visit to Kolossi was a great introduction to the role of Cyprus in the Middle Ages, paralleling the way that Cyprus was a strategic and contested place in antiquity.

–Miki H.

Despite the near constant panic that plagued my entire adolescence, I had a surprisingly low number of concerns about traveling abroad to Cyrpus on my own. Although only twenty-three, I figured I had enough life experience under my belt to conquer this hurdle, or at least shakily climb my way over and flop down like a dead fish at the finish line. Either way was fine with me, so long as I made it there. The worries I did have were big things, like having to go to the hospital here, or something happening to one of my family members back home. I hoped and prayed I would experience neither of these things, that my trip would go according to plan, exactly the way I wanted it to, and I would sail smoothly over the waves the whole entire time. I felt good about it, too, especially when I got to spend time in Athens. Roaming around a city I had longed to visit for years, independently, was a high like no other. I was making my family back home so proud, but more importantly, I was proud of myself. I stoop in front of a statue at the Acropolis Museum, a beautiful marble piece entitled “Nike Unbinding Her Sandal”. It was headless, but still flooded with life. The stone was cut so that it looked like her dress was made of real silk, like I could reach out and touch it and it would flow through my fingers. Her wings were only an outline, jutting from behind her body. And she was indeed bending down, as though taking off her sandal after a long day of winning victories. I laugh out loud in the quiet space, because I was imagining her taking off that sandal and chucking it at someone. I resonated with that statue like I haven’t with any piece of tangible art. I wanted the victory that Nike promised to bring forth, and I decided that I was going to have it. I was going to be victorious.  

And then, the next day, I wound up in the hospital.  

It was a sneaky pesto sauce snuck into what was meant to be tomato sauce pasta that did it, making my lips swell and my throat close and my lungs wheeze. Stupid pinenuts! I had double checked there were not nuts in this pasta, and yet here they were, shutting my body down and sending me to a hospial in a foreign country, where I had no idea how anything worked. And the waiter had still made us pay!  

Luckily, after two IV’s and two rounds of the nebulizer, all of which only cost me three euros, I was off to the airport.  

When I finally made it to Cyprus, I retold the story like a fun anecdote, sure that my bad luck was over for the remainder of the trip. I could still be victorious, I decided. 

And then, four days later, I got the call that my youngest brother was in the hospital back home. 

I don’t remember much about the day I got that call. I floated through everything like it wasn’t really there, like I wasn’t really there. People were speaking to me through what felt like layers of cotton. I was here, living in a beautiful, bright morning. Pieces of pottery were being thrust into my hands, and I was holding thousands of years with my own fingers, but all I really wanted was the present. Where my brother was undergoing emergency surgery to remove one of his beautiful brown eyes. Where my parents were sitting in a waiting room, exhausted in the middle of the night.  

Instead of doing what I really wanted to do, which was return to the apartment, get into bed, and pray that the bed would magically turn into a time machine or a teleportation device, I instead journeyed to the Larnaca Archaeological Museum with my peers.   

I wandered around, looking at things but not really taking them in. I was searching for a something to grab my attention and hold it there, a sign to let me know my brother would be okay. Angel numbers, something that reminded me of him, something that reminded me of anything. And between one room and another, I saw a statue of Nike. She was headless again, and positioned similarly to the statue of her I had so loved in Athens. But I did not take it as a sign. I was angry. I had called on NIke for victory, and I was not getting what I wanted. 

The things that had tormented my imagination about leaving were becoming real, I was miles across the sea from my family in a place that was unfamiliar, and I had no idea what to do. That was not victory. 

I took the next day off, just to clear my head and debate with myself on what to do next. After talking to my family, including my brother, I decided I was going to stay and stick it out as best I can.  

I walked around Larnaca for awhile on my own, popping into the little shops and taking in the city. I could still feel that energy I felt when I started my journey in Athens thrumming in my body. I was still standing, even after my two greatest fears had materialized a week into my trip.  

I realized then that I had been looking at things wrong.  

There is not victory without a battle. Victory without a fight is just luck.  

If I wanted victory, I needed to stay in the thick of it, to dig deep, both figuratively and literally.  

The victory wasn’t eating lunch and not having an allergic reaction. The victory was walking from the hospital to the airport. The victory was the act of marching along. 

The victory wasn’t getting that call from my mom and finding out what had happened. The victory was when I talk to my brother on the phone, and every day he makes me laugh a little harder from his hospital bed. The victory was finding a lead sling bullet in the dirt and naming it after him.  

The victory wasn’t touching down in Athens and realizing I was strong, the victory was my first week in Cyprus and realizing I could be stronger.  

Every day after work, I go to the beach. I kick my sandals off and think of Nike. And when the tang of saltwater hits my tongue, it tastes like victory. 

-Abby

The village of Lefkara is, in a word, whimsical.  

It’s not often a place can be called whimsical. There is always something not-so-whimsical around at least one corner. Not in Lefkara. Even the abandoned buildings in Lefkara are whimsical. 

I’m unsure of why I was so shocked by this. Obviously, a village known for literal lace making would have to be whimsical. It can’t look like New York City, decidedly the most un-whimsical place I have ever been.  

We walked down whimsical alleyways and got little glimpses of people in their homes, sitting in courtyards and smoking, or petting their cats and reading the paper. I only felt a little guilty about looking. I mean, these people live like this. I think I can spy a little bit and call it a tax.  

Being in Lefkara made me dread going back to Aurora, Colorado, where you can’t even call the nicest little house whimsical. I wondered if I could ever end up in a place like Lefkara. I certainly would like to. 

I think our visit to Lefkara highlighted what had been nagging at the back of my mind since landing in Athens, which is what my future could hold. It was scary to travel to Europe until the moment I got there. What had seemed so impossible from a distance became possible, even probable.  

I could see my life somewhere I had never pictured it taking place before, and I liked what I saw. 

It made me kind of sad when I got home to remember my favorite things about Cyprus, of which Lefkara was included, but it makes me excited, too. Because maybe one day, someone will walk by my house and see me water my plants or reading a book, and maybe they’ll find the same ambition that I did. 

I had a lot of goals for myself in Cyprus. Some were your standard “participate and take advantage of opportunity” type of goals, while others were a bit more abstract, like “make friends” and “don’t cry”. Some were easier to accomplish than others.  

Some goals, though, were just wishes in disguise.  

Outside of archaeology, my passion for history lies in the fashion realm. I love fashion and textile history, and it is what I really want to pursue. I’ve often looked for ways in which those two passions, for fashion and archaeology, can intersect. 

So the most abstract goal that I had was to figure that out. 

I was so fascinated while in the Larnaca Archaeology museum at the jewelry section, and I crossed my fingers in hopes that I could find something similar. It’s not fashion in the textile sense, but most fashion never really is, even today.  

I was jealous at every bead and broach back pulled out of the dirt all month long.  

Sure, a lead sling bullet is cool, but oh how I longed to excavate a little bead or a ring or an earring.  

Something else that had caught my attention at the museum were the loom weights. Also not directly fashion textiles, but the means to that kind of thing. I liked the display that showed how they worked, a bunch of stone weights tied to the ends of strings. It reminded me of using my water bottle as an anchor for the string friendship bracelets I used to make.   

I was surprised that when I found one, I knew exactly what it was. 

I called it out by name, remembering the ones I had seen in the museum, and felt so joyful. 

The intersection was here, and just as the weights unraveled the strings a thousand years ago, I began to unravel my tangle of thoughts surrounding my future.  

I was pretty sick and tired of agonizing over ingredients lists early on into my journey.  

But after the pesto mishap in Athens, I was not about to let myself get sent to the hospital again.  

Once was most definitely enough. 

I was continually stoked to find something American in the stores in Cyprus, even if it seemed more American-adjacent than truly American. 

Brands like Haribo, Lays, Coke, and Pringles were always welcomed into my meager supply of food with open arms. I knew they wouldn’t do me dirty. Even if they were hit-or-miss in taste and came in a variety of unfamiliar and mildly alarming flavors. I’m looking at you, Shrimp Cocktail Lays.  

You can imagine how absolutely over the moon I was to find a pack of skittles in a convenience store around the corner from the apartment. I took them down to the beach with me, already opening the packet as I walked. I tossed an orange one into my mouth- pretty good! A red one- strawberry, my favorite! A green one- lime, which is a source of contention for me. I still think they shouldn’t have gotten rid of green apple. But, whatever. A yellow- lemon, meh. And finally, a purple- what the hell? 

That is not grape. That is definitely not a grape skittle.  

I looked at the packaging- black current? 

Gross. Gross gross gross. 

It tasted like licorice and cough medicine. I was instantly not a fan. 

But, hey. No nuts, no problem. 

I bought a few more packets over the course of the month, and donated all of the black currant skittles to whoever stuck out a paw.  

I was shocked to confer with my classmates after our field trip around some sites near Limassol to find out that they didn’t care about the medieval castle.  

“That was the one I would have skipped,” they said. 

It was truly appalling.  

I, personally, wouldn’t have skipped a single thing, but if forced at gunpoint to pick one of the four places to axe from the roster, it would have been the neolithic site we did last. And part of that decision could be influenced by the fact that it was indeed the last place we visited, and therefore I was the most sweaty while being there, but that’s not the only reason.  

Unfortunately, I am a huge fan of castles. And medieval history. Specifically (hold for gags) English medieval history.  

I won’t pretend that isn’t not a little messed up that a very British looking castle exists in Cyprus, because yes, the colonization of it all, but I’m also not going to pretend like I didn’t think it was sick. The good kind of sick. 

I mean, it was the first place we visited that you could walk inside of. Which was nice because of the heat, but also because it’s just so cool to walk through a place that people fully lived and died in. I admit, I fully imagined which room would have been mine had I lived there. 

I think the presence of the castle really contributes to just how storied the history of Cyprus really is. We spent a lot of time living in the Hellenistic world, which is unfalteringly interesting, but getting to look outside of that is equally as special. This is not a place where time stands still. It evolved with the rest of the world, it got to see the changing of the guard as power moved west. And the castle is a tangible reminder of that very important truth.  

So, if you’re reading this, tzar, DO NOT LET THEM TAKE THE CASTLE OFF THE FIELD TRIP LIST! 

Sometimes when I’m washing pottery, I feel a little guilty.

And it’s strange, because who I should feel bad for is Faith, because the dark circles under her eyes have only grown darker and circleier since she started scrubbing at an amphora handle two and a half hours ago, but instead…

Instead I kind of feel bad for the handle. It takes so much effort- or elbow grease, as I’ve heard it said- just to get a little of the dirt off the terracotta surface. And we lean over buckets of filthy water for hours in a trance, working away with out thumbs at the head of toothbrushes, only to lay down the broken pieces not much better off than we’ve found them, to cook under the hot sun. 

I understand the why, I really do. Someday, researchers who won’t remember our names and faces will pick up the pieces like communion at Sunday mass and say thank you. And we aren’t even doing it for the thank you as much as we’re doing it for the ease of the sacrament. We’re making learning less complicated, hoping that our elbow grease is enough one day ti teach us something new and true and wonderful.

But when the dirt won’t budge, it’s hard to feel like you’re really doing anything at all.

It’s like the fragments of pottery are gaslighting you, convincing you that you don’t deserve to know the secrets they’re hiding.

The scrub of a toothbrush against burnt. lay sings “I’m not telling you! I’m not telling you!” 

It’s enough to drive you crazy if you don’t bring headphones, which I always do.

I get so meditative over it that it surprises me when my fingers get frustrated without me, working the toothbrush frantically over dirt-cakes surfaces like speed is enough to rip away the years. 

“I think it’s time, Faith,” I told her in the same tone I would to someone I was walking away from a grave.

And, really, how is it any different? That amphora handle will loose itself in the archives, to be rediscovered again someday by someone with s keener eye, a softer mind. Someone who knows how to pry up the dirt with no effort at all, as easy as a breath. 

I can’t see my reflection in the water once it’s filthy, which never takes long. But I can see the way my brow is furrowed when I rub my fingers raw against a shard, can see the way my eyes roll when I see a tiny sliver of red among all the gray and realize I have to scrub that much harder.

Sometimes I pull a piece from the murky water and have to refrain myself from asking, “Do you even want to be clean?”

Because who am I to say that these broken dishes weren’t put into the ground on purpose, like wildflower seeds promising to bring more and new and spring?

Anyway, Faith’s nails scratch at the handle and don’t make a dent, and I can feel my fingers start to bleed. 

-Abby

We gave up on three hour dinners about a week into being in Cyprus.

The first Friday, after work, we were all so sick of each other we huddled in our beds, covers up, trying to pretend like we were alone. It wasn’t so much homesickness as it was bedsickness, the yearning for a space of our own too much to bear. 

It wasn’t even like we don’t like each other, because we do. It’s just that being on all the time, meeting new people, getting to know them, constantly fielding questions and cracking jokes, was exhausting. Throw in the hot sun and manual labor, and you have yourself a Friday night for the books.

Literally. I read like two books that night, just so I could do something that wasn’t smiling and asking someone how many siblings they have and what their zodiac sign is. 

Hannah suggested we order food from Wolt, and Annika picked out a pasta bar to get dinner from, and we all grabbed our food when it showed up in the lobby and put our headphones in and didn’t talk for the rest of the night. 

And it was the best pasta I have ever had.

I got the creamy shrimp and broccoli pasta with rigatoni and extra parm, and oh my God was it spectacular. It was so classically Italian in a way almost nothing else is on the island. Sometimes when you want a certain kind of food here, specifically regional cuisine, it’s a little off. 

Not this.

This was spot on.

And I can’t even lie, we’ve had it like seven more times. 

Capodecina, bless you.

To the woman there who always remembers that I’m allergic to treenuts, bless. To the man there who gives us diet coke for free, bless.

It’s crazy how easy it is to have a regular spot in such a short amount of time, but that is it.

To any future students reading this who have yet to find a regular spot: they are closed on Sundays, but let them know why you’re here and who sent you, and you might qualify for a 10% discount.

-Abby

We had to sacrifice either Barbie or Oppenheimer just due to time management, and we did the obvious.

Okay, the obvious to us.

The obvious to everyone else may be that a bunch of archaeology hopefuls who study history and anthropology would probably opt for Oppenheimer.

But the true study of humanity was Barbie, if you’re galaxy brained like we are.

So that’s what we decided on.

And it was the right choice.

There was a little fear that maybe the whole movie would be in Greek instead of English, a fear that was exacerbated when the commercials were all in Greek, but when we hit the trailers, we knew it would be smooth sailing.

The subtitles weren’t distracting at all, at least not as much as the incessant talking from the audience through the whole thing. The theatre was packed, not a single seat was empty, and everyone donned pink apparel to sit in the dark room, lit brightly by the vibrancy of Barbieland. 

Some of the jokes only we laughed at, sailing over the heads of our fellow non-America movie goers. But the sniffling that rang out in the theater during particularly moving scenes was universal.

A particularly poignant line stood out: “We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far they’ve come.”

It hit me especially hard, for two reasons.

The first is that I am so far from home, my mother eight hours behind me, and I miss her. She always wanted to study abroad and told me time and time again how much she wanted me to do something like this. In a way, we both got on that flight out of Denver. I’m doing this for us both.

The second reason was that I remembered how surrounded I am by women on this trip. It’s been so incredible to see how motivated and hard working all of my peers are. The fact that the majority of them are women is not lost on me.

Here’s the hoping for an Archaeologist Barbie sometime in the future.