Deadline for Submission

APRIL 15, 2024

The Association for Coroplastic Studies (ACoSt) is pleased announce the 2022-2023 round of The Diphilos Dissertation Prize. This is a biennial monetary award of €1000 that is granted to a recent Ph.D student for an accepted dissertation that focuses on coroplastic material from the Mediterranean or Near Eastern worlds from the Neolithic period through late antiquity. This Prize is awarded in support of the eventual publication of the dissertation, so the successful applicant must submit a financial report within two years of the receipt of The Prize detailing how the funds were used in support of the publication of the work. The name Diphilos is known from signatures and monograms found on late Hellenistic and early Roman terracotta figurines from Myrina in Asia Minor. It is believed that Diphilos may have been the proprietor of a coroplast’s workshop that eventually was active over several generations.

Dissertations to be considered for The Diphilos Dissertation Prize for the 2022-2023 round must be submitted within two years of acceptance by the relevant university, and applicants must be members of the Association for Coroplastic Studies at the time of application for the Prize. The Diphilos Dissertation Prize will be awarded every two years, contingent upon the availability of funds and a successful application. For this current round of the Prize only dissertations that have been accepted in 2022 and 2023 will be considered.

Application for the Diphilos Dissertation Prize constitutes a two-step process. The first step, which must be completed by April 15, 2024, consists of a submission of a 550-word summary of the dissertation in either English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish and up to 20 illustrations, as well as the defense report or equivalent documentation from the applicant’s university that the dissertation has been accepted. A cover sheet, available at the end of this document, is required that includes the applicant’s name, address, university affiliation, title of the dissertation, and date of acceptance. From all submissions 10 applicants will be invited to take part in the second step.

To download an application for The Diphilos Dissertation Prize click on the download button below.

The second step comprises a more detailed review of the 10 semi-final applications. This includes, for each applicant, the submission of the completed dissertation, whatever its language, the defense report, and detailed plans for the eventual publication of the dissertation. At each step the applications are peer reviewed by a committee comprising knowledgeable researchers recognized for their work in the appropriate subject matter, whose responsibility is to make the final recommendation on the awarding of the Diphilos Dissertation Prize.

Applications can be submitted digitally to coroplasticstudies@gmail.com with the words “Diphilos Dissertation Prize Application” in the subject field. 

Alternately, applications can be sent by regular mail to:

Association for Coroplastic Studies, 310 Riverside Drive, suite 1212, New York City 10025, NY. 

Please address all questions to coroplasticstudies@gmail.com

Pauline Maillard

Kition-Bamboula IX. Les cultes des Salines à Kition : étude des terres cuites d’époque classique. MOM Éditions, Lyon, 2023.

The corpus studied in this book is a collection of four hundred terracotta figurines found at the end of the 19th century on the shores of the Salt Lake at Larnaca, in south-eastern Cyprus. Based on the archives of the period, the author reconstructs a complete and detailed catalogue of the objects and explains their origins.

These representations, largely dominated by the figure of a woman enthroned wearing a high calathos headdress, shed light on all aspects of clay craftsmanship in the Cypro-Phoenician milieu. It explores local “savoir-faire” and its transmission as well as the internal organisation within the terracotta workshops. They also reveal the resourceful technical processes used by the Kitians.

The study looks in detail at the ways in which iconographic types were used and integrated into ritual contexts. It highlights the presence of Aphrodite and Artemis in peri-urban cults, as well as gods of Phoenician or Egyptian origin such as Astarte, Umm, Eshmoun-Melqart and Bes. By analysing the links between the marine environment and the character of the deities, the author underlines the cultural and ritual dimension of salt and the sea in the religious landscape of Cyprus, Phoenicia and the Levant. On the whole, the study reveals the historical importance of the development of cults in the kingdom of Kition in the 4th century BC.

Available in Open Access: https://books.openedition.org/momeditions/17218