Evretou artefact 5
Friday, November 24, 2006
Evretou building 4c: everything in shadow, I could only see the scrub, the building on the hill, the water shimmering and the sun setting and could imagine it being a tranquil village in the Lake District.
As always during my surveys, I was limited by the light, which was sometimes so strong as to make taking photographs impossible (as it made the shot white out) and which was always a cap on how long and how late I could work; still, it meant I always got home in time for a late supper.
Evretou fountain 2b: this is just a close-up of this public fountain, which was intended to show the fountain, but make the "WSID 1948" mark more visible; it didn't really work.
[Updated on 21st September 2009.]
The WSID was the British colonial Water Supply and Irrigation Department.
Evretou fountain 2a: this public fountain was also built in 1948 by the colonial British WSID(?), cast in concrete against a stone wall, now being enveloped by grasses and shrubs.
[Updated on 21st September 2009.]
The WSID was the British colonial Water Supply and Irrigation Department.
Evretou artefact 3: one hunter had drunk a can of what I think was Tuborg; it looks like he enjoyed it, then crushed it with satisfaction before he littered the wilderness that used to be Evretou village.
Evretou artefact 2: one hunter had drunk Mr. Brown's iced coffee, though I can't imagine why, as it was such an awful, weak, bitter coffee that the one time I had it I poured it away; maybe he did too.
Evretou artefact 1: just as I started hearing shots going off around the valley and walking back to the car in case I was in the hunting grounds, I saw this spent cartridge.
When finding the material remains of hunting trips, the parties tend to deposit a typical assemblage of spent cartridges, crushed cans of coffee (Evretou artefact 2) and beer (Evretou artefact 3) (and snacks packaging), either where they base themselves or along the sides of the paths between those bases.
Evretou building 14: I don't know what this is, precisely (water treatment, desalination or sewage treatment?), but it was installed by the colonial British WSID (Works and Social Insurance Department?) in 1948. These structures and the public fountains are frequently the only fully intact buildings left in the abandoned villages.
Evretou buildings 13: apart from the modern materials, this now looks more like a prehistoric, megalithic dolmen portal tomb than it does a twentieth-century home.
Evretou buildings 12: this site also reminded me of Kosova/Kosovo, as it was being swallowed by natural materials, entering the ground, in the process of becoming an archaeological deposit, as many places in Kosovo were.
As these materials fade, so do the memories they hold. It is already possible to imagine future archaeologists excavating these remains and trying to piece together what happened, but how much could they learn and how convincing would their narrative of the site be? If we could maintain these sites, we could maintain those memories and convincing proof of the histories we need to tell.
Evretou fountain 1: pleasingly built in stone, fitting into its setting, rather than in the prevalent, prefabricated concrete that always detracts from its surroundings, this public fountain didn't have one thing that the concrete ones do, which was the date of its installation.
Evretou buildings 11
[This post was updated on 18th August 2009.]
On Cyprus Temples, the bicommunal architectural survey recorded Evretu Mosque as:
Structure: Repaired;
Facade: Repaired;
Roof: Repaired;
Interior: Repaired; and
Decoration: Ruin.
Evretou building 9e: looking at the bricks forming the left corner of the structure, one of them has a cross carved into its left corner; in the photo, the graffiti is "pointed to" by the roof of the building in the background. (I don't know what to make of the smear of tar(?) and the scratches under, in or through it.)
Evretou building 9d: the damage to the structure does at least expose the layers of action that went into making the floor.
Evretou building 9a: this house too was being used as a straw (and sand or cement?) store; however, the thing that grabbed my attention was this gaping hole in the wall and floor.
The material surrounding the hole still sturdy, the wall seems to have been punctured, the floor breaking up and falling down with it (one benefit for people studying it being the "fan" of material displaying the many phases of its construction, most visible in the photo of Evretou building 9d). I still want to know: who or what did this (with what, how) and why?
Evretou building 8b: I have seen the covered outdoor area, the front of which is formed by the double arches, in homes that are still lived in, where they provide a cool, shaded place for people to work, friends to talk and children to play.
Now, the cover half-gone, the mudbrick disintegrating, the building is fenced in and the home is, as far as I can tell, an animal pen.
Evretou building 7c: just visible in the background on the far right of the photo of Evretou buildings 7a, the quality of the building shows that it has been restored or maintained, though I don't know whether that was by Greek Cypriot refugees arriving after the war, or farmers, hunters, holidaying squatters or others staying at the site more recently.
Evretou buildings 7b[: homes]
[Updated on 20th August 2009.]
Turkish Cypriot Zen said this was his/her family home.
Evretou buildings 7a: of the central building in this set, only the two back walls and the floor remain in the present, creating a real version of the plans commonly drawn to show how a building would have looked inside in the past (by removing the roof and front walls that would be in the way of the viewers).
Evretou building 4b: this shows the abandoned [school] building
[Updated on 20th August 2009.]
Thanks to Zen, I now know this was the school.
Evretou building 5: more of an excavation than a construction, this (storage?) pit has been cut into the bedrock.
As I had approached, the stench of rotting animal carcasses had become stronger and, with the desolation of this ghost town, it had reminded me of those dead places in Kosova/Kosovo. Putting my hand through the strap of my camera so I couldn't drop it down there, I held it over the pit, took the photo and retreated.
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