Chapter 4: Cyprus in the Twelfth and Eleventh Centuries BCE

Steel, Louise (2026) Chapter 4: Cyprus in the Twelfth and Eleventh Centuries BCE. In: Cambridge Companion to the Greek Iron Age. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 96-112. (In Press)

Text Steel, Louise (2026) Cyprus in the Twelfth and Eleventh centuries BCE.pdf - Accepted Version Restricted to Repository staff only Available under License CC-BY-NC-ND Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (293kB) | Request a copy

Abstract

The 12th -11th century BC marks the transition between the Late Bronze Age (LBA) occupation of Cyprus and the very different social world of the Early Iron Age. The final phase of the LBA is marked by a series of violent destructions, the abandonment of major urban centres and rural communities throughout the island, and a subsequent dramatic shift in settlement pattern. Alongside this there is a clear break in material production on the island – in particular within the field of pottery production, and significant changes in funerary and ritual practice. Within the wider East Mediterranean context, the period is characterized by a breakdown in international maritime trade, the disappearance of the major palace economies and overarching empire states, and significant population movement. The extent to which Cyprus was directly affected by these changes is debated, in particular the presence of Mycenaean colonising communities; certainly, there is some evidence that the island’s significant copper trade persisted, albeit not at the same scale as during the LBA, and there is evidence for continued cultural and trading links with the island of Crete and the Philistine communities of the southern Levant. By the end of the 11th century the surviving communities occupied a very different social and economic world. This chapter will explore the context of these changes on Cyprus: the evidence for the establishment of new communities ancestral to the Iron Age city kingdoms, using settlement and cemetery archaeology, the changing material world of the new settlements, external contact beyond the island and evidence for the earliest Phoenician trading and/or colonising activity on the island. In particular it will examine the degree to which the island might be considered to be a part of the emerging world of Iron Age Greece.

Item Type:	Book Section
Subjects:	A General Works > AZ History of Scholarship The Humanities D History General and Old World > DE The Mediterranean Region. The Greco-Roman World
Divisions:	Institutes and Academies > Institute of Education and Humanities > Academic Discipline: Humanities and Social Sciences
Depositing User:	Louise Steel
Date Deposited:	05 Feb 2026 15:14
Last Modified:	05 Feb 2026 15:14
URI:	https://repository.uwtsd.ac.uk/id/eprint/4107

Administrator Actions (login required)

Edit Item - Repository Staff Only