archaeology.]
CYPRUS
made at Salamis, by the same;1 (4) minor sites were examined at Leondari Vouno (1888),2 Amargetti (1888),3 and Limniti (1889);4 (5) in 1888 Mr Hogarth made a surface-survey of the Karpass promontory;5 and finally, (6) in 1894, the balance was expended by Mr J. L. Myres in a series of trials, to settle special points, at Agia Paraskevi, Kalopsfda, and Larnaca.6 In 1894 also, Dr Kichter excavated round Idalium and Tamassus for the Prussian Government: the results, unpublished up to 1902, are in the Berlin Museum.7 Finally, a legacy from Miss Emma T. Turner enabled the British Museum to open numerous tombs, by contract, of the GraecoPhoenician Age, in 1894, at Palaeo-Lemesso (Amathus) ; and of the Mycenaean Age, in 1894-95 at Episkopi, in 1895-96 at Enkomi (near Salamis), and in 1897-99 on small sites between Larnaca and Limasol.8 Many important sites remain still unexplored, and many problems unsolved; but the outline of Cypriote archaeology which follows may give some idea of the conclusions established hitherto. The Stone Age has left but few traces in Cyprus ; no sites have been found, and even single implements are very rare. The < ‘ megalithic ” monuments of Agia Phaneromeni and Halat Sultan Teke, near Larnaca, may perhaps be dolmens of the Palestinian type ; the vaulted chamber of Agia Katrina, near Enkomi, may be Mycentean or later ; the perforated monoliths at Ktima belong to oil-presses of uncertain date. The Bronze Age, on the other hand, is of peculiar importance in an area which, like Cyprus, was one of the chief early sources of copper. It has been carefully studied both on settlement sites at Leondari Vouno and Kalopsida, and in tombs in more than thirty places, notably at Agia Paraskevi, Psemmatismeno, Alambra, Episkopi, and Enkomi. Cypriote Bronze Age culture falls into three stages. In the first, the implements are rather of copper than of bronze, tin being absent or in small quantities (2 to 3 per cent.); the pottery, of gourd-like and often fantastic forms, is all hand-made, with a red burnished surface, with simple geometrical ornaments incised. Zoomorphic art is very rare, and imported objects are unknown. In the second stage, implements of truebronze (9 to 10 per cent, tin) become common ; painted pottery appears alongside the red-ware, and foreign imports occur, such as Egyptian blue-glazed beads (xii.-xiii. dynasty: 2500-2000 B.c.) and Asiatic cylindrical seals (one of Sargon I.+2000 B.c.). In the third stage, intercourse with Palestine and Egypt, following the conquests of Thothmes III. (c. 1500 b.c.), brought over new fabrics of pottery, which were freely copied ; and iEgean colonists introduced the Mycenaean culture and art, which rapidly dominated the primitive native industries : new types of weapons, and wheelmade pottery appear ; gold and ivory become abundant, and glass and enamels are known. The magnificent tombs from Enkomi and Episkopi (in the British Museum) illustrate the wealth and advancement of Cyprus at this time.9 The early Iron Age which succeeds is a period of obscurity and relapse. Iron, which occurs rarely, and for ornaments, in some of the tombs at Enkomi suddenly superseded bronze for tools and weapons, and its introduction was accompanied, as in the Algean, by economic, and probably by political changes, which broke up the high civilization of the Mycenaean colonies, and brought about a return to poverty, isolation, and comparative barbarism. Gold, and even silver, become rare ; foreign imports almost cease ; engraved cylinders are replaced by conical or pyramidal seals like those of Asia Minor, and dress-pins by brooches {fibulae) like those of Greece ; representative art languishes (except a few childish attempts to model in clay), and the decorative art becomes once more purely geometrical in character. But while Mycenaean traditions lingered in Cyprus after their extinction in the iEgean, new Oriental influences from the Syrian coast were felt there earlier than farther west. Two lines of foreign tradition may be distinguished, originating in Egypt and Assyria respectively. Of these, the former predominates somewhat earlier than the latter, a historical date for which is given by the Assyrian conquest of Cyprus in 704 b.c. The effects are best seen in sculpture and in metal-work, though it remains doubtful whether the best examples of the latter were made in Cyprus or on the mainland. Among the great series of engraved silver bowls, some examples show almost unmixed imitation of Egyptian types ; in others,
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Assyrian types are introduced among the Egyptian in senseless confusion ; while in others both classes are merged in a mixed art which betrays a return to naturalism, and a new sense of style, and from its intermediate position between the art of Phoenicia and its colonies, and the earliest art of Hellenic Greece, has been called Graeco-Phoenician. The same succession of styles is represented in sculpture by the votive statues from the sanctuaries of Aphrodite at Dali and of Apollo at Voni and Frangissa ; by the elaborately painted terra-cottas from the “Toumba” site at Salamis ; and by magnificent examples in the Cesnola collection. Gem-engraving and pottery-painting follow very similar lines ; the latter, however, with greater naiveth of treatment, and closer adherence to Mycenaean traditions. Meanwhile, iEgean influences, which had been predominant in the Mycenaean Age, and had never wholly ceased, grew stronger as Hellenic culture matured, and slowly repelled Phoenician Orientalism. Imported vases of “Dipylon,” “Proto-Corinthian,” and “Rhodian” fabric (though not of orientalizing “Corinthian”) occur rarely, and were imitated by the native potters, and early in the 6th century the influence of Ionia*, and still more of Naucratis, becomes perceptible in imports, in ceramic, and in sculpture. Finally, from the later 6th century, and the period of “ blackfigured” vases onwards, a rapidly increasing mass of Attic imports (chiefly vases) brings Cyprus at last into full contact with Hellenism. Unable, however, to rival, or fully to acquire, this higher culture,-native art and industry languished and became extinct even before the Ptolemaic conquest (295 B.C.), except, perhaps, in Citium, the headquarters of Phoenician influence in the island. A rare and beautiful class of terra-cottas like those of Myrina and Tanagra may be of Cypriote fabric, but their style is wholly of the iEgean. The Greek10colonists in Cyprus traced11their origin, at Curium, from Argos ; at Lapathus from Laconia ; at Paphos from Arcadia ;12 14 at Salamis from the Attic .Salamis ;13 and at Soli also from Attica. The settlements at Paphos and Salamis, and probably also at Curium, were believed to date from the period of the Trojan War ; the name of Teucer, the legendary founder of Salamis, probably represents a memory of the piratical Tikkara who harried the Egyptian coast under Eameses III. ; and the discovery of Mycenajan settlements at Curium and Salamis, and of traces of subMycensean occupation at Paphos and Lapathus, goes far to confirm the belief that the legends have a historical basis. The Greek dialect of Cyprus points in the same direction ; it shows marked resemblances to that of Arcadia,15 and forms with it a “South Achaian”or “ South iEolic ” group related to the northern iEolic of Thessaly and other parts of north and central Greece. No Greek alphabet was used in Cyprus, except by visitors,16 until the 4th century, and the numerous inscriptions of earlier date than this are written in a peculiar and elaborate syllabary17 which can be traced 18 in use in late Mycensean times, and is apparently related to the linear and pictographic scripts of Crete and the South iEgean.19 In the Phoenician centres, Citium and Idalium, a Semitic dialect and 20 the Phoenician alphabet were in use from the 8th century at least ; and a cuneiform inscription recording 21 the conquest of the island by Sargon II. has been found at Larnaca. The coins of the Greek dynasts and autonomous towns are struck on a variable standard, with a stater of 170-180 grs.22 For Ptolemaic (Hellenistic) Cyprus the evidence is most inadequate. Excavation in the great sanctuaries at Paphos and Idalium, and in the public buildings of Salamis, which were all wholly remodelled during this period, have produced but few works of art; and the sculpture from local shrines at Voni and Vitsada, and the frescoed tombstones from Amathus, only show how inadquately the Cypriote copied debased Hellenistic models. For the Roman period there is abundant evidence from the sites of Salamis and Paphos, and from tombs everywhere ; but little that 10 11 Hdt. 5. 117 ; Strabo, 13683. Strabo, 682. 12 14 Id. 683. Id. 682. Id. 683. 15 Moriz Schmidt, Z. f. Vergl. Sprachw., 1860; H. W. Smith, Tr. Am. Philol. Ass., 1887; R. Meister, Zum Eleischen, Arkadischen u. Kyprischen Dialekte, 1890; Otto Hoffmann, Die Griechischen Dialekte, vol. i., 1891. Full bibliography in Cobham (see above). 16 E.g., Ionic inscriptions of early 5th century from Amathus. Excavations in Cyprus (Brit. Mus.), 1900, p. 95. 17 George Smith, Tr. Soc. Bibl. Arch. i. (1872) ; Moriz Schmidt, Sammlung Kyprischer Inschriften, 1876 ; Deecke, Ur sprung der Kypr. Sylbenschrift, 1877, cf. Deecke in Collitz, Samml. d. Gr. Dialektinschriften, i., 1883 ; Meister, Gr. Dialekte, ii.; Ber. d. K. Sachs. Ges. d.18 Wiss., 1894; Indo-Germ. Forsch. iv. 175 ft', (cf. Cobham, l.c.). 1 2 19 Excavations in Cyprus, 1900, p. 27. Journal of Hellenic Studies, xh., 1891. Id. ix., 1888. Evans, Journ. Hell. Stud. xiv. (1894), xvii. (1897). 3 4 20 Id. ix., 1888. Id. xi., 1890. 5 6 21 Corpus Inscr. Semit. ii. (1881), cf. Cobham, l.c. Levia Cypria, Oxford, 1889. J. H. S. xvii., 1897. 7 22 Schrader, Die Sargon-stele des Berliner Museums, 1882. De Luynes, Numismatique Chypriote, 1852 ; I)e Vogue, Melanges 8 Summarized in Cyprus Museum Catalogue, Oxford, 1899. d'Archeologie Orientals, 1869 ; Six, Revue Numismatique, 3rd Ser., 9 Excavations in Cyprus, London, 1900. The official publication stands alone in referring these tombs to i. (1883); Pecz, Num. Zeitschr. xvi. (1884); Babelon, Catalogue des the Hellenic period (800-600 b.c.). Monnaies Grecques de la Bibl. Nationals, 1893.
