The Earliest Iron Age: LC IIIB
The early Iron Age (ca. 1125-1000 BC) represents a major cultural break in the archaeological record of Cyprus. Although often regarded as a time when Aegean migrants or colonists established firm control over native Cypriotes in new towns that later became the centres of Cyprus's Iron Age kingdoms, this chapter argues through detailed discussions of a wide range of archaeological data that the population of the island was as hybridized as it material culture, showing a clear amalgamation of native Cypriot, Aegean, and Levantine (Phonenician) elements. Again employing the concept of hybridization, it examines various types of pottery, metals (including a spit with an inscribed Greek name), mortuary goods and tomb constructions, figurines, and luxury items to argue that the colonial encounter played out on early Iron Age Cyprus was anything but a blanket emulation of Aegean high culture. Instead, not only material but also social and ethnic meetings and mixings in the various towns and regions of Cyprus are seen.
Keywords: Iron Age kingdoms, hybridization, ethnicity, Greek colonization, Phoenicians, colonial encounter
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