As we start to prepare for the 2009 fieldseason, Cyprus starts to intrude on my thoughts more often. One thing I do to prepare for the summer is to start reading the Cyprus news online. At the AIA last weekend, I talked to several Cypriots who were happy that it had been raining quite a bit over the last few weeks. This is good news since the drought on the island was fairly bad last summer. The Cyprus Mail reports that the water levels in the reservoirs are only about half of what they were last year at this time and that despite the recent rains, it will take several more downpours to help out.
After reading about the rainfall situation, I then happened upon an article about a group of Russian investors looking to develop an amusement park on the island. It was quite interesting to read since they will be building a 5 star hotel, with theatres, a waterpark, a mall, and even a place to watch reenactments of the Battle of Salamis. This new site would be open by 2012 ad bring in an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 visitors a day. It was actually amusing to imagine this until I got to the part where the article mentioned where the proposed building site was going to be……………..PYLA. This totally freaked me out. If this is true, what will this mean for the Pyla-Koutsopetria project? Sure, we can relax after a hard day’s work at the waterpark or dine at fancy restaurants, but what will this mean for the development of the area? This certainly underscores the importance of our work in the area and reinforces to me the importance of expanding our survey area before development of the area increases.
RSM
Ancient History Ramblings 