“[…] when they [ancient local Cypriots] cut down all the trees, created the terraces with rocksto retain some water and avoid losing the soil” (Andreas N., personal communication, 7 February 2024).
The above passage is a narrative shared by Andreas, an elderly resident of Oduo who has generationally cultivated juicy tangerines on the terraces in central Troodos, Cyprus. Along with the winter fruits, a considerable amount of archaeological artifacts are unearthed from the terrace soils. Even though the cultural significance of Cypriot agricultural terraces, there are still significant unknowns regarding when and how they were built.
This way, a team of AMGC archaeologists and geographers from KU Leuven participated in a field campaign during the first week of February 2024. The campaign covered the eastern part of Cyprus, intending to provide new insights under the FWO Project Terraces as a land management strategy in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The team explored various terraced landscapes, from the lowlands of Larnaca to the highest peaks of the Troodos Mountains. During the exploration, a wide variety of terraces was identified based on their typology. The terrace walls in the southeastern Troodos foothills are primarily made up of angular blocks of limestones, while the terraces in the central and northern Troodos are dominated by slightly rounded subangular igneous rocks. The team obtained aerial imagery data from the terraced slopes using the AMGC drone and they are now analyzing the data to plan for fieldwork next fall.
Credits to Terrace team members and to Jan Coenaerts – a Cypriot archaeology expert. The Terrace team is composed of Ralf Vandam, Matthias Vanmaercke, and Soetkin Vervust as PI’s; together with Andrei Kedich and Axel Cerón González as doctoral students.
