Art and Society in Cyprus from the Bronze Age into the Iron Age

Joanna S. Smith

City: Cambridge

Year: 2009

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Description: Hardback, 416 p., 100 b/w ill., 2 maps, 25,3x21,5 cm

Abstract

Dramatic social and political change marks the period from the end of the Late Bronze Age into the Iron Age (ca. 1300–700 BC) across the Mediterranean. Inland palatial centres of bureaucratic power weakened or collapsed ca. 1200 BC 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 harbour 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 emphasises 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 BC until the development of centralised government by the Phoenicians, backed by the Assyrian king Sarpedon II, in 707 BC.

Contents

List of Figures [ix]

Preface [xiii]

Chronological Tables [xvii]

1. Introduction [1]

2. Setting the record [27]

3. Sizing up images [79]

4. The human perspective [119]

5. Deposits and pots [164]

6. Pits and imports [195]

7. From scholars to potters [220]

8. Conclusions [244]

Notes [259]

References [331]

General Index [363]

Objects Index [385]

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