This project offers the first sustained study of undocumented digging in Athienou, Cyprus during the island’s transition from British rule to independence (1878-1960), reframing archeological “looting” as a historically situated social and economic practice. Drawing on archaeological evidence from the site of Athienou-Malloura, unpublished oral histories collected in the 1990s, and early police and administrative records in the Cyprus State Archives, I reconstruct the motivations, knowledge, and networks of local Athienites engaged in the antiquities trade. By foregrounding local voices, the study challenges dominant archaeological narratives and contributes to broader debates about heritage, ethics, and ownership of the past.

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Derek B. Counts is Distinguished Professor of Art History at UWM, where he has been on the faculty since 2002. He earned his AB in Classics from Davidson College, an MA in Latin from the University of Georgia, and a PhD in Classical Archaeology and Art from Brown University. Counts is a field archaeologist specializing in the material and visual culture of the ancient Mediterranean, with a particular focus on the island of Cyprus. He is Co-Director of the Athienou Archaeological Project – a multidisciplinary project investigating the site of Athienou-Malloura and the surrounding valley in south-central Cyprus. He has published extensively on the archaeology of religion in Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean during the first millennium BCE, with a special emphasis on Cypriot sanctuaries and the intersection of cult and cultural identity in the formation of communities. He is Co-Editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Ancient Cyprus from Oxford University Press, which is due out in 2027.

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