News from the field

September 2024…last visit to Cyprus

The field trip to Cyprus in September 2024 had many objectives related to the project HIGH-PASM and beyond.

Victor Beauvalet obtained a scholarship from the Normandy region to work on the British medical reports on the 20th century and extract the spread dynamic of malaria disease in parallel with the landscape evolution that occurred on the island. Therefore, many meetings with the Thalassemia center, the medical school of the University of Nicosia and other libraries holding medical archives were organized to see if the old archives spanning the 20th century could be completed with recent data on the Cypriot population.

In parallel, some meetings with the administrative office at the University of Nicosia aimed to discuss future collaborations for European projects (e.g. MSCA Doctoral networks) involving the medical school of the university, other institutes such as the Troodos geopark to build many PhD topics on Climate and Human ecology in the Eastern Mediterranean during the past. Other meetings were also organized to prepare the final closing conference for the HIGH-PASM project that will be fixed in May 2025.

Finally, a field trip is organized to the Akamas Peninsula to explore again the Varathro pit, after obtaining the permission from the forestry and geology department of the ministry of agriculture. The aim is to film the scenes during the descent to the cave and the sampling procedure in-situ. Environmental measurements inside the pit (temperature, CO2) were conducted as well as sampling speleothems spanning older periods than the last millennial (e.g. Holocene, last interglacial). Such samples will be used in future proposals (e.g. MSCA Doctoral networks) to work on past climate reconstruction under the prism of early human occupation of the island in collaboration with the University of Cyprus and the University of Thessaloniki.

 

April 2024…second workshop in Rouen 

A second workshop (15 and 16th of April) is organised at the University or Rouen to to discuss human & climate interaction in Cyprus for the last 700y with cypriot colleagues. Next results are to be presented in 2025! the climate data are based on: i)  the compilation of weather data for the last 140 years from the blue books and ii) geochemical data from Hot cave stalagmites. The social data covering diseases, locusts, demography and famine are based on the compilation of medical reports, various historical archives and published papers. The main challenge is to find a causal link between environmental/climate and social data or a series of factors that mark a tipping point towards a certain social impact  mentioned in historical data…ABM will certainly help is desintangling plausible weight of each factor impacting a social stress.

 

After our workshop for the ANR HIGH-PASM, some collaborative projects are been discussed between the University of Rouen and the University of Nicosia, such as  Erasmus collaborative program.. linkedin.com/posts/maxime-b

 

November 2023…completing the collection of medical data and video shooting for our project’ documentary

A new field mission is planned this month to complete some medical data from accessible archives in some libraries. The team from the University of Rouen (Emmanuel Eliot, Raphaelle Krummeich and Victor Beauvalet) meet our Cypriot colleagues to produce a documentary for our project. The aim is to project this movie during the press conference  for the closure of our project and also to use this documentary as an outreach tool for our students and public. The equipment for the video shooting is sponsored by the University of Rouen.  

Some of the Video shooting were done at the Larnaca salt Lake with Iris Charalambidou to show the dryness issue that is hit the Island since 2 years now!! The last day of the field week in Cyprus was focused on video shooting near the Lapithos Qanat, where some calcite precipitates spanning few centuries were collected and analysed. 

 

March 2023…measuring geochemical proxies on stalagmites from Cyprus 

From 13th to the 18th of march, Dr Gabriella Koltai from University of Innsbruck and Dr.  Carole Nehme from University of Rouen joined Dr. Tobias Kluge at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technologie (KIT) to begin measuring clumped isotopes on the Hot-2 stalagmite. The latter was dated using U-Th measurements and laminae counting to derive a model age covering the last 700 years. The stalagmite covering continuously the time period 1330 to 2021 AD was previously measured for stable isotopes with more than 800 measures. The stable isotope provided will enable us to derive a qualitative climatic trend for the end of the Medieval warm period, the Little Ice Age and the Common Era periods. The clumped isotopes measurements will help us to derive quantitative estimations of palaeotemperature. Adding to the Hot-2 stalagmite, secondary carbonate deposits from Lapithos Qanat and from both Argaka and Amiandos tunnels were dated and measured for stable isotopes. the latter deposits covering more recent time periods will be compared to weather data collected from the historical archives. 

 

February 2023…collecting data at the State archives of Cyprus 

The field work mission conducted between February 11 and 18, 2023 by Pr. Emmanuel Eliot focused on searching old documents at the State Archives (Κρατικό Αρχείο) of the Republic of Cyprus.  Colonial documents from the British era (e.g. Secretariat minute papers) have been inspected and collected, specifically those concerning disease outbreaks and the development related to the control of infectious diseases between end of 19th century and World War II.

Those specific documents transcribe the exchanges between the health officials of the 6 districts of the colony with the governors during the colonial period. The data collected made it possible to complete the medical and sanitary reports recovered in 2021 so far as it concerns the most basic information on the colonial health system. Such documents also provide additional elements to the medical reports previously collected, by integrating non-aggregated and localized data. In total, more than 20 files were collected, containing more than 500 documents.

Pr. Eliot consulting documents at Makario library (photo above). Entrances of the library of Kikkos monastery and the State archives of Cyprus (photos below).

 

October 2022…visiting libraries and science outreach at NEU 

The last fieldwork mission for the year 2022 focused on visiting the library of Kikkos monastery in Nicosia, the Makario Library and the Sanatorium South-West of Troodos mountains. Many meetings with specialists in medieval history helped us find books comprising translated correspondences (Ottoman to Greek) between archbishop in Cyprus with Istanbul and covering the time period from 1599 to 1880 CE. Another book comprises translated correspondences focusing on agriculture and irrigation from 1770 to 1880 CE. In parallel of finding medical and sanitary reports in Makkario Library, the team from University of Rouen (Pr. Emmanuel Eliot and Dr. Carole Nehme) were invited to give a public presentation at the Near-East University and discuss about the HIGH-PASM project and the climate change in Cyprus.

Dr. Nehme & Pr. Eliot communicating about the project at the Near East University (photo above). Cover of two books comprising the correspondances between the archbishop in Cyprus with Jerusalem and Istanbul during the Ottoman rule (photos below).

 

June 2022…what’s new from the field ?

from 10th to 18th June 2022, the team comprising Pr. Emmanuel Eliot (WP2), Linu Danielkutty (Phd Scholar) and Romain Reulier (WP3) went to Cyprus again to compile more historical data and documents on diseases, demography and old maps on landscape.

During the two-first days of the mission, the team went with Dr. Salih Gucel to the library of Kyrenia where 500 local registers (called ‘defter’ in ottoman) from the Ottoman empire were listed to see if some were covering topics related to health issues that might have been archived by the library. Focussing on these defters implies a massive use of translation from Ottoman to English. Defters focus on many different objects (destruction, event, infrastructure…)  and are based on narratives and descriptions.  Therefore, another source of information based on ‘tarhir’ (register, census) was available, especially the 1832-33 census on population and vegetation which quantify people and resources. In addition, a set of maps and British reports have been collected in order to complete the previous data collections.

The team looking on the digitized documents ‘defter’ in the library of Kyrenia.

During the second part of the week, the team checked some data from a private collection located in a library in Limassol. Some qualitative data were found concerning the British administration during the 19th century, the local management of mosquito campaigns the and some books compiling old British maps which will help to model the evolution of landscape of Cyprus during 19th and 20th century.

Visit to the library of Limassol and checking the private archives which comprise historical books

 

November 2021…continuing the exploration of historical archives

In November 2021, Prof. Emmanuel Eliot (University of Rouen Normandy) and researcher Armelle Couillet (IDEES 6266 CNRS) visited the Island of Cyprus in order to continue the exploration of historical archives in museum and libraries. Earlier in July 2021, the French team visited Dr. Nicolas Koureas (expert on Medieval Cyprus history) at the Cyprus Research Center and Mr. Antonis Farmakas from the Ministry of Health. The team found digitized archives that go back to the British colonization period and succeeded to access to the Blue Books that span the reports of the British colonial office in Cyprus from 1880 to 1946. Such annual reports comprise all the statistics covering demographics, agriculture, weather, health data. Earlier reports from the mid-19th century are still to be found. Also, Prof. Eliot contacted the Thalassemia national center that hold all the statistics for the thalassemia data covering the whole Island. In November 2021, the French team continued the exploration of historical archives and succeeded to digitize the annual medical & sanitary reports of British colonial office in Cyprus, from 1913 to 1952. Earlier medical reports covering all the health data (statistics for several disease types and their location) are still to be found. Additional medical reports were found in Limassol and caver the late 19th century. Other archives reported in books were found in the Museum of Medicine in Larnaka and will be completed by other generic archives and more specific ones from monasteries and churches.

On the left, a scanned page reporting several kinds of diseases in 1927 (source : annual medical & sanitary report, British colonial office). on the right, a cover of a generic book comprising medical and sanitary reports in Larnaca (source: museum of medicine, Larnaca).

Finally, several older maps of the island of Cyprus (1862, 1872) were digitized and will be used along with maps from the 20Thcentury to reconstruct the evolution of urban areas, roads, forest & agriculture areas throughout time. Older maps dated back to the 17th and 15th centuries need to be found still.

 

October 2021… a successful sampling campaign !!

The second visit to Cyprus aimed to sample carbonate deposits in caves, qanats and man-made tunnels. The fieldwork lasted 15 days and several sites were visited with the help of local cavers, colleagues at the University of Nicosia and geologists at the geological survey department. Both Tobias Kluge (KIT, Germany) and Carole Nehme (UR—CNRS, France) visited the tunnel under the Amiandos mine in the Troodos mountains. Then, some quick prospection visits in the sea caves of Paphos area were completed but were not conclusive as we expected. Indeed, the field could reveal some unexpected flops… However, our visits to the evacuation tunnels build for both Pomos and Aragaka water dams revealed successful and small stalagmites covering the last 60 years were collected in one of the tunnels. Finally, the field visit to the Akamas Peninsula (SW Cyprus), specifically to visit water springs and Varathro pit was successful and some stalagmites and spring water were sampled in this area.

 The group of cavers who explored Cathedral cave (Photo credit: Andreas Antoniou)

 Photo on the left: drip water sampling in one of the Lepta Qanats. Photo on the right: care sampling of calcite (Photo credit: Carole Nehme).

Our visits in the Northern part of the Island were done with local cavers and colleagues with whom we are collaborating in this project. Visits to Hot cave, Cathedral cave, Lepta Delesi cave were conclusive with several stalagmites and drip water sampled in these sites. Some environmental parameters were measured as well (pCO2, H, T°) for each sampled site. Last but not least are the visits of the Qanats in Lepta village. These Qanats were built during the crusaders period, some were dry and other were still wet with calcite deposits on the walls and floors. Several carbonate deposits were sampled in this Lepta qanat.

The whole team after the visit of Varathro pit. from the left to the right: Davor Garasic (caver), Tobias Kluge (KIT-Gemrany), Andreas Antoniou (caver and forestry department), Carole Nehme (PI HIGH-PASM project) and Vasilis Symeiou (head of the GSD).

 

July 2021.. Our first field trip to Cyprus. 

Our first visit to some areas in the island showed the diversity of the inner landscapes specifically with the hot and arid climate of the Mesaoria plain contrasting the Troodos mountains with a humid and cool temperature.

Photo credit: Carole Nehme

The second and third days of our field trip showed the potential of some karstic areas in the Akamas peninsula and coastal areas of Paphos where some caves and valleys need extensive explorations. 

Photo credit: Carole Nehme

The fourth day was dedicated to visit some limestone quarries comprising some caves with secondary calcite deposits. Some of these deposits consist of stalagmites, flowstone and stalactites. Prospective datings will be conducted on some of the collected samples to determine the age of the calcite deposits.

Photo credit: Carole Nehme

In collaboration with our colleagues at the University of Nicosia, several meetings with historians and visits to libraries and health documentation centers helped us to evaluate the potential of historical archives in health, demography, weather data …. 
Photo credit: Emmanuel Eliot

The last day of our filed trip focussed on visiting some underground mines. one of them is the tunnel under the Asbestos mine in the Troodos Geopark. Under the several hundred meters of waste produced by the mine, a 2 km tunnel was constructed in 1977 to drain a river down to a valley. At 2 km from the entrance, several stalactites and stalagmites grow at both sides of the drained water.

  

Photo credit: Andreas Antoniou