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CYPRO-GEOMETRIC
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1050-750 B.C
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| The early centuries of the Cypro-Geometric following the disruptions that ended the Late Bronze Age are often called a "Dark Age," but this misnomer merely reflects the sparsity of written records for the period, not its material conditions. Few early Iron Age settlements are known, but numerous rich tombs have been excavated at Salamis, Kaloriziki, Lapithos, and Palaipaphos Skales. Their contents are opulent - gold and silver jewelry, Egyptian faience and scarabs, imported pottery from the Aegean and Syria-Palestine and elaborate metal weapons and vessels - and attest to great local wealth and continuing connections with the Aegean, Egypt and the mainland Near East during the early Iron Age. | ||
| By the ninth century BC the first Phoenician colonists arrived from the mainland founding new settlements or taking over existing ones at Kition and Amathus. Other coastal cities grew up at Salamis, Kourion, Palaipaphos, Soloi, and inland at Idalion, Tamassos and Ledra (ancient Nicosia). The re-emergence of urban settlement resulted in the division of the island into approximately 10 small, autonomous city-states, each controlling a geographically limited region. These small kingdoms maintained their precarious independence by relying on the island's relative remoteness to stave off military occupation by the growing Assyrian empire. This pattern persisted until the Hellenistic period, when the island was incorporated into Alexander the Great's vast empire. |
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A Cypro-Geometric Tomb from Kaloriziki
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This rock-cut tomb was approached down two steps and through an entrance passage or dromos. One skeleton, whose long bones are visible on the lower right, was found in the eastern corner of the chamber. Over 130 items mainly ceramic vessels, were given to the individual as tomb gifts. Human bones were found inside the large amphoroid krater sitting upright at the center of the north end, with three plates on top of the bones. It is not certain whether they belonged to the same individual. Mycenaean-type tombs with a very different plan, which continued in use from the Late Cypriot III period, have been found at Gastria Alaas, Lapithos, Salamis, and Kaloriziki near ancient Kourion. Burial proctices at Kaloriziki included cremation as well as inhumation. |
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URL: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~semitic/Cesnola/ArchChronoCG.html
Last Modified: 11/15/99