Books - Cyprus Archaeology

Product Description:
This book is a comprehensive panorama of the two periods of Cypriote archaeology-the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600-1150 B.C.) and the Geometric and Archaic periods (ca. 1050-500 B.C.)--that have been in the spotlight as a result of the renewed interest in the study of Phoenician civilization and the Phoenician expansion to the west, in which Cyprus played a leading role. The periods covered in this book are of supreme importance in the development of the ancient civilization of Cyprus, and special attention is paid to the interconnections in the Mediterranean in order to explain the phenomena of Cypriote culture. An extensive and up-to-date bibliography is included.

Product Description:
A ground-breaking investigation of burial practices and social transformations in the era when Cypriot agricultural communities moved from village to urban life and became major players in the eastern Mediterranean copper trade. The author develops an innovative theoretical and methodological approach that enables her to define and elucidate the shifting spatial relationships between tombs and habitation areas, the elaboration of rituals involving secondary treatment and collective burial, and changing patterns of mortuary expenditure and symbolism throughout the Bronze Age. Keswani proposes that during the Early-Middle Bronze periods, the growing elaboration of mortuary festivities and their crucial importance in negotiating status hierarchies contributed to the intensification of Cypriot copper production and the expansion of interregional exchange relations. Subsequent changes in mortuary practice suggest that the importance of collective burial rites and traditional modes of ritual display diminished over the course of the Late Bronze Age, as urban institutions multiplied and the bases of social prestige were transformed.

Product Description:
The ancient Cypriot collections of the British Museum have inspired the essays in this volume in honour of Veronica Tatton-Brown, who for many years was their curator. Written by her academic colleagues and friends, the themes covered range from funeral rites at Late Bronze Age Enkomi to sculptured portraits of parents and children in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, along with the reconstruction of the Persian siege ramp at Palaipaphos and the history of Cypriot archaeology as revealed in the Museum's archives. The focus on individual objects ranges from the superb craftsmanship of an ivory gaming-box to an intriguing clay model of a dagger and its sheath, in a volume that highlights key points of interest in this rich and varied collection. Thomas Kiely is the Cyprus Curator in the Greek and Roman department of the British Museum.

Product Description:
Excavations at Sotira Kaminoudhia exposed tombs and the first settlement to be excavated in Cyprus belonging to the Early Bronze Age, an era previously known only from mortuary deposits. Experts in many fields present a wide range of artifacts studies, including ceramics, chipped and ground stone, metals and terracottas. Other chapters focus on the skeletal remains, the flora and fauna, the geology, the environment and a regional archaeological survey. This final report provides much material from southern Cyprus that may now be compared with that from the contemporaneous site of Marki Alonia in the center of the island

Product Description:
This concise survey is an introduction to the art and culture of ancient Cyprus, from the time of the first settlers around 7000 B.C. to the end of the Roman period in the late fourth century A.D..



Customer Review: recounts the rape and plunder of colonialism by the brishish:
beautifully and richly presented pictures of marbles ,ceramics,bronzes,mosaics and frescoes looted by the british colonial administration of Cyprus.This important work showcases the overwhelming significance of this little mediterranean island to the heritage of the world through the millenia from neolithic times,early greek and byzantine times and the post byzantine period of foreign domination for most of this millenium.Worth purchasing just for the pictures ...the commentary is mediocre at best.

Product Description:
Dramatic social and political change marks the period from the end of the Late Bronze Age into the Iron Age (ca. 1300-700 BCE) across the Mediterranean. Inland palatial centers of bureaucratic power weakened or collapsed ca. 1200 BCE while entrepreneurial exchange by sea survived and even expanded, becoming the Mediterranean-wide network of Phoenician trade. At the heart of that system was Kition, one of the largest harbor cities of ancient Cyprus. Earlier research has suggested that Phoenician rule was established at Kition after the abandonment of part of its Bronze Age settlement. A reexamination of Kition's architecture, stratigraphy, inscriptions, sculpture, and ceramics demonstrates that it was not abandoned. This study emphasizes the placement and scale of images and how they reveal the development of economic and social control at Kition from its establishment in the thirteenth century BCE until the development of a centralized form of government by the Phoenicians, backed by the Assyrian king, in 707 BCE.

Product Description:
Vounous is the name of a low hill overlooking the sea on the north coast of Cyprus. It is situated one and a half miles east of the Abbey of Bellapais, which is one of the chief tourist attractions of the island. The site, located in the northern foothills of the Kyrenia range, is a large prehistoric Bronze Age cemetery. Its tombs were looted in the early 1930's and the Department of Antiquities was alerted of the sale of Red Polished vases at Kyrenia. Porphyros Dikaios, Curator of the Cyprus Museum, undertook the rescue excavations at Vounous in 1931-1932 and uncovered tombs 1-48. In June, 1933, Claude F.A. Schaeffer excavated tombs 49-79 in the same area. An expedition of the British School at Athens continued the excavations in 1937-1938. All of them conducted unsuccessful field research around the site in order to find a settlement connected to the necropolis.

Product Description:
A. Bernard Knapp presents a new island archaeology and island history of Bronze Age and early Iron Age Cyprus, set in its Mediterranean context. Drawing out tensions between different ways of thinking about islands, and how they are connected or isolated from surrounding islands and mainlands, Knapp addresses an under-studied but dynamic new field of archaeological enquiry - the social identity of prehistoric and protohistoric Mediterranean islanders. In treating issues such as ethnicity, migration, and hybridization, he provides an up-to-date theoretical analysis of a wide range of relevant archaeological data. In using historical documents to re-present the Cypriot past, he also offers an integrated archaeological and socio-historical synthesis of insularity and social identity on the Mediterranean's third largest island.

Product Description:
The last three decades have witnessed the introduction of gendered approaches to the social sciences in general, and archaeology in particular, developing initially within the rubric of women's studies by American feminist and other politically minded academics who formed part of the Women's Movement of the early 1970s. By examining archaeological remains from the perspective of gender, we can begin to formulate approaches to the study of past cultures more deliberately and intimately. The papers in this volume focus on issues of gender and society in ancient Cyprus from the Neolithic to Roman periods. The introduction of gender as a focal point in archaeological research will continue to advance the discipline by contributing vital new approaches to the social interactions of the islands rich and dynamic past.