Hidden Pasts: Developing narratives for community archaeology and local history at Arediou, Cyprus

This project sets out with the intention of informing local people about their past, perhaps even "re-introducing" them to the past, both recent and ancient and is based around the community of Arediou on Cyprus. It is intended that by encouraging and empowering the local community to better understand the continuity between their ancient and modern history, that they will not only embrace, but also gain the pride to want to curate and eventually even disseminate their own archaeology and history.

Because of the geographical position of the island, Cyprus has been subjected to many different cultures and beliefs for hundreds, if not thousands of years, not only that, but they have also frequently been ruled by people they would deem to be outsiders or even invaders. As such they have often been dictated to throughout history, and that is how many modern-day residents of the island generally, and Arediou in particular, feel about their archaeological sites today. By that we mean that they feel "distanced" and unattached from their archaeology and therefore history, and the only real information they have is what has been communicated to them from some central government department. As a result of this discrepancy/shortfall, the locals have very little respect for the archaeological remain , even ones that fall within their own immediate area - consequently they are treated with scant regard and are often seen as simply targets for looting, or the gathering of curiosities.

Cyprus as a whole is rapidly changing and becoming more and more 'Westernised'. Property developing is moving at a pace and as a consequence the traditional mud-brick houses are disappearing from the landscape. Arediou on the other hand, although experiencing inevitable change, is somewhat isolated from the pressures that many areas are experiencing and still retains a fair number of these older buildings. Not only that, but because of the rural nature of the village, it also has many older residents who were born and bred in the village, and who retain lucid memories of their childhood and important events within the recent history of the area.

By combining the ancient with the modern, in other words the archaeology with the contemporary ; the project intends to present a more holistic version of their cultural heritage/history to the villagers. A doorway to the ancient already exists via the ongoing excavation of a Bronze Age site in the village and it is intended that this should be coupled with not only the oral record provided by the older residents, including accounts of Ottoman rule and more recently EOKA resistance (against British occupation) and the 1974 invasion (by Turkey), but also a photographic record of many of the extant mud-brick buildings within the area, many of which were the original family homes during Ottoman rule. Constructing their history in this way will make it more meaningful and therefore accessible to the community, it will also encourage them and give them the confidence to take possession of what is, and always has been, theirs. The process of disseminating the information to the community will be done via hands-on sessions in the local school, combined with site visits that would be open to the general public, as well as an information booklet written in Greek. In addition and along with help from the Department of Antiquities in Nicosia it is intended to provide a display of artefacts from our excavation at Arediou accompanied by story boards, to be permanently housed in the new Civic Centre in the village, thereby making the whole story permanently visible and available to a much wider audience. All the information will then be compiled and used to produce a bi-lingual website that would be hosted and regularly maintained from our servers at the University in Wales.

The fundamental purpose of this project is to promote a wider understanding of the value and relevance of the past (both recent and ancient) as a means of safeguarding the archaeological record for future generations and to address narratives of cultural heritage within a local context. As such knowledge exchange between the project members, wider academic community and the wider public has been very carefully thought through. Accordingly, we have identified four main areas to facilitate the dissemination of information and to engage with the wider public:

1. Development of a bilingual (Greek and English) website, outlining the main aims and objectives of the "Hidden Pasts" project. The archaeological material from the excavations will be presented in a format that is accessible to a non-specialist audience, namely within a narrative framing the significance of Arediou within the Bronze Age cultural landscape of Cyprus. Additionally, and to develop the theme further, some of the preliminary results from the pilot project recording images and histories will be presented.

2. Engaging with the Community Council at Arediou, specifically facilitating communications with the relevant government body (Department of Antiquities, Nicosia), as well as collaborative efforts using the appropriate expertise from within the Department (thereby ensuring maximum exploitation), with the express aim of establishing an exhibition space within the recently constructed Civic Centre in the village. This exhibition will be available to the wider community and will allow them to experience and engage with their archaeological heritage.

3. Building upon previous initiatives at Arediou we will be instigating ongoing community engagement mediated via the Village School. This will involve hands-on sessions in which the school children are able to actively engage with the archaeological material from their own local site. In addition we have been asked to organise site visits for the school children. These sessions will be conducted by the PI through the medium of Greek, and will result in an informative body of information being permanently and readily available via the local school.

4. In addition to these sessions we will also produce an illustrated booklet in Greek presenting the local archaeology in a format suitable for the school children: this will tell the story of the local archaeology during the Bronze Age: why people lived at the site, how they lived and worked at the site, the importance of the ancient copper trade and the interactions beyond Cyprus with Egypt and the Aegean.