This book examines the archaeology of Cyprus from the first-known human presence during the Late Epipalaeolithic through the end of the Bronze Age.

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The latest finds--architectural remains, burial objects, stone artifacts, pottery, and copper objects--from recent excavations indicate that Cyprus played a more pivotal role in pre-Bronze Age socioeconomic development than was previously thought. This book describes findings from excavations at Lemba, the site where the most important new information about this period has been uncovered. Included are illustrations of many previously unpublished or unexhibited materials from both the Cyprus Museum and the J. Paul Getty Museum. This book serves as a catalog to the February 1990 exhibition held at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

New Directions in Cypriot Archaeology highlights current scholarship that employs a range of new techniques, methods, and theoretical approaches to questions related to the archaeology of the prehistoric and protohistoric periods on the island of Cyprus. From revolutions in radiocarbon dating, to the compositional analysis of ceramic remains, to the digital applications used to study landscape histories at broad scales, to rethinking human-environment/climate interrelationships, the last few decades of research on Cyprus invite inquiry into the implications of these novel archaeological methods for the field and its future directions. This edited volume gathers together a new generation of scholars who offer a revealing exploration of these insights as well as challenges to big questions in Cypriot archaeology, such as the rise of social complexity, urban settlement histories, and changes in culture and identity. These enduring topics provide the foundation for investigating the benefits and challenges of twenty-first-century methods and conceptual frameworks. Divided into three main sections related to critical chronological transitions, from earliest prehistory to the development of autonomous kingdoms during the Iron Age, each contribution exposes and engages with a different advance in studies of material culture, absolute dating, paleoenvironmental analysis, and spatial studies using geographic information systems. From rethinking the chronological transitions of the Early Bronze Age, to exploring regional craft production regimes of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, to locating Iron Age cemeteries through archival topographic maps, these exciting and pioneering authors provide innovative ways of thinking about Cypriot archaeology and its relationship to the wider discipline. List of Contributors: Georgia M. Andreou, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Classics, Cornell University Stella Diakou, Postdoctoral Fellow, Archaeological Research Unit, University of Cyprus Maria Dikomitou-Eliadou, Postdoctoral Fellow, Archaeological Research Unit, University of Cyprus David Frankel, Professor Emeritus of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University Artemis Georgiou, Marie Curie Research Fellow, Archaeological Research Unit, University of Cyprus Catherine Kearns, Assistant Professor of Classics, University of Chicago Sturt W. Manning, Goldwin Smith Professor of Classical Archaeology, Cornell University Eilis Monahan, PhD Candidate, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University Charalambos Paraskeva, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of History and Archaeology, University of Cyprus Anna Satraki, Director of Larnaka District Museum, Department of Antiquities of Cyprus Matthew Spigelman, ACME Heritage Consultants, Partner

This volume, introduced by Edgar Peltenburg, presents the results of latest research by young scholars working on aspects of Cypriot archaeology from the Bronze Age to the Venetian period. It presents a diversity excavation, material culture, iconographic and linguistic evidence to explore the themes of ancient landscape, settlement and society; religion, cult and iconography; and Ancient Cyprus and the Mediterranean.

A ground-breaking investigation of burial practices and social transformations in the era when Cypriot agricultural communities moved from village to urban life and became major players in the eastern Mediterranean copper trade. The author develops an innovative theoretical and methodological approach that enables her to define and elucidate the shifting spatial relationships between tombs and habitation areas, the elaboration of rituals involving secondary treatment and collective burial, and changing patterns of mortuary expenditure and symbolism throughout the Bronze Age. Keswani proposes that during the Early-Middle Bronze periods, the growing elaboration of mortuary festivities and their crucial importance in negotiating status hierarchies contributed to the intensification of Cypriot copper production and the expansion of interregional exchange relations. Subsequent changes in mortuary practice suggest that the importance of collective burial rites and traditional modes of ritual display diminished over the course of the Late Bronze Age, as urban institutions multiplied and the bases of social prestige were transformed.

An up-to-date, systematic depiction of Bronze Age societies of the Levant, their evolution, and their interactions and entanglements with neighboring regions.

The excavations at Sotira Kaminoudhia in southern Cyprus revealed the remains of tombs and an Early Bronze Age settlement. This is the first Early Bronze Age settlement to be excavated in Cyprus, an era previously known only from mortuary deposits. This volume provides a final report on the excavations and includes specialist studies on various artifact groups, including: ceramics, chipped and ground stone, metals and terracottas. Other chapters focus on the skeletal remains, local flora and fauna, the geology, the environment, and a regional archaeological survey. This important report provides a wealth of new material from the southern part of the island, material that may now be compared with finds from the contemporaneous site of Marki Alonia in the centre of the island.