A06_15

Progress towards a Byzantine-Medieval Historic Buildings Tree-Ring Chronology from Cyprus using dendrochronology and radiocarbon

Manning S^1,2,  Lorentzen B¹, Bakirtzis N², Soyluoğlu M²

¹Cornell University, Ithaca, United States, ²The Cyprus Institute, Nicosia, Cyprus

The painted churches of the Troodos Mountains in Cyprus are monuments of global significance and form key references for Byzantine and Medieval art and architecture in the broader Eastern Mediterranean. However, exact timelines for their building biographies are only approximately known, based on subjective stylistic and typological criteria and a few inscriptions that are not always directly related to the building or the associated artwork. Wooden elements employed in the architecture, decoration and furnishing of these and other historic structures in Cyprus can offer both a key independent chronological resource and also inform on the associated processes of resource acquisition and use. We report on a research project using dendrochronological analysis combined with radiocarbon to begin to date and source the wooden cultural heritage of Cyprus from the Byzantine, Medieval and Ottoman periods. The ultimate aim of the project is to create the first high-precision timeline for Byzantine and post-Byzantine art and architecture in Cyprus, and to better illuminate the building histories of these structures. Here we report on initial work from the project on a key group of Cypriot painted churches and other historic monuments. While we have been able to directly date some more recent timbers and wooden cultural heritage against forest tree-ring chronologies, new multi-century floating Byzantine tree-ring sequences from several monuments have been preliminarily anchored in calendar time within a few years via radiocarbon wiggle-matching. This work is beginning to create the basis of a high-resolution record linked with over 800 years of cultural heritage.