At around dawn on July 21, 365 A.D., an earthquake decimated the ancient Roman city of Kourion, a port on Cyprus's southwestern coast. The quake, the biggest to hit the Mediterranean at the time, was invoked in the religious writings of the famous fourth-century writer Ammianus Marcellinus.

Image

Archaeologists began unearthing clues about pre-quake Kourion in the 1930s. But in the mid-1980s, a team of University of Arizona archaeologists led by anthropology and classics professor David Soren re-excavated the site and finally found evidence of the quake, bringing the disaster's story into sharper focus. Among the team's findings was a housing complex that had been buried in the quake, known now as Kourion's "Earthquake House."

One scene the team revealed inside the complex, in 1986, was particularly striking: three skeletons – two adults and a baby – cradled against each other, limbs shielding bodies, crushed under fallen plaster and 150-pound stone blocks. Soren and his team determined they were the remains of a 25-year-old man, a 19-year-old woman and 1-and-a-half-year-old baby, presumably a family.

Soren, now a U of A Regents Professor of Classics and Anthropology in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, has spent his 50-year archaeology career uncovering the Romans' ancient mysteries. The answers he helped find about the Kourion earthquake helped fuel further research about the Roman Empire's final days on Cyprus. His team also preserved the remains of the family in the Earthquake House, which have been displayed at a local village museum in Cyprus in the decades since.

Image

Now, the government of Cyprus plans to make the findings by Soren's team, including the preserved family, a focal point of a forthcoming national museum. The Cyprus Archaeological Museum is expected to open in Nicosia, the island country's capital, in 2027, with its final room being dedicated to the U of A discoveries.

"Archaeology is, for me, a voice for people who can't speak for themselves except through what happened to them. When I saw this family, and the way they faced death with such terror but bravery – I can barely think of it now," Soren said as he recalled the discovery recently, his voice breaking.

"So, to be able to tell something of their story, and for the people of Cyprus now," he added, "it means a lot."

Soren's discussions with Cyprus's federal Department of Antiquities began about six months ago, he said, when officials reached out for information about Kourion in developing the museum. 

Soren immediately donated his research archive from his time at the site, which had sat largely untouched since the 1980s. It included illustrations of the earthquake's destruction over several phases, records about how residents of Kourion responded to the disaster, and documentation of pottery sherds and other smaller finds.

Giorgos Georgiou, director of Cyprus's Department of Antiquities, thanked Soren for his donation in a letter earlier this month. Soren tuned in via Zoom to a virtual ceremony on Tuesday morning with Georgiou and other Cypriot officials to celebrate his donation. 

Image

The department plans to digitize Soren's archive and include pieces of it in an exhibit near the end of the museum, which will focus on the late fourth century A.D. The exhibit will also honor the work of Walter Birkby, the former head of the Arizona State Museum's Human Identification Laboratory, who was instrumental, Soren said, in helping preserve remains from Kourion.

"This donation is a significant addition to the preservation of Cyprus' cultural heritage, while the archive itself will serve as an enduring resource for scholars and students of Cypriot archaeology," Georgiou wrote in his letter. 

Soren's records, Georgiou added, "will not only enrich our archival collections but also enable wider access to your work, ensuring that the knowledge you have unearthed will continue to inspire and educate future generations."