CYPRUS
[The traveller will find the Catalogue of the Cyprus Museum , by J. L. Myres and M. Ohnefalsch–Richter (Oxford, 1899) indispensable for the study of Cypriote Antiquities. Reference may also be made to Myres, Catalogue of the Cesnola Collection of Antiquities from Cyprus (New York, 1914). They contain numerous illustrations of types, and make diagrams for the present section unnecessary.]
The principal classes of ancient remains are as follows:
Settlements. These are usually much devastated by the removal of building materials to more recent habitations; or are obscured by modern towns and villages on the same site. All foundations in squared masonry, or composed of unusually large stones, should be noted and protected as far as possible. The frequent presence of large building stones, and especially of architectural fragments, in recent house–walls probably indicates the neighbourhood of an ancient building: and all reconstructions and fresh foundation–trenches should be kept under observation. The present Antiquity Law provides for the inspection and custody of ancient remains so exposed: the Curator of Ancient Monuments is charged with the supervision of all buildings and monuments above ground; the Keeper of Antiquities for the custody of movable objects, and for the registration of those already in private possession. Taking into consideration the utility of good building material to the present owners of such sites, active co–operation to preserve ancient masonry is not to be expected, unless local patriotism and expectation of traffic from tourists can be enlisted in support of Government regulations. Architectural fragments found in reconstruction are often best preserved by arranging that they shall be built conspicuously into one of the new walls, well above ground–level, or transferred to the nearest church or school–house.
Sanctuaries usually consist of a walled enclosure containing numerous pedestals and bases of votive statues and other monuments. Usually only the foundation–walls are of stone, as the same sun–dried brick was commonly used in ancient as in modern times for the superstructure. Such sites are often vary shallow, and when they occur in the open country are liable to be disturbed by ploughing, when the smaller statuettes and terra–cotta figures may be turned up in considerable numbers. As most of our knowledge of the sculpture, as well as of the religious observances, of ancient Cyprus is derived from such sites, all such indications should be reported at once to the Keeper of Antiquities, and arrangements made for the site to be examined with a view to excavation before it is cultivated further. The sculpture on these sites begins usually in the seventh century B.C.; before that period terra–cotta figures were in use as far back as the ninth or tenth century. Figures of 'Mixed Oriental' style, resembling Assyrian or Egyptian work, give place about 500 B.C. to a provincial Greek style, which passes gradually into Hellenistic and Graeco–Roman. The material is almost invariably the soft local limestone, and the workmanship is often clumsy; but even the coarser examples should be treated carefully, as they were sometimes completed in colours which are easily destroyed by too vigorous washing. The first cleaning should be with gently running water only.
Tombs are of all periods, and are found not only around historical sites and actual ruins, but also in localities where the settlement to which they belonged has wholly disappeared. Though simple graves were always in use among the poorest folk, the commonest form of tomb at all periods is a rock–cut chamber entered by a door in one side, to which access is given by a shaft or sloping passage (dromos) cut likewise in the rock. The earliest are but a few feet from the surface, just deep enough to ensure a firm roof to the chamber; later the depth is as much as 12 or 15 feet. Occasionally the chamber, and even the passage, is built of masonry and roofed with stone slabs or a corbel vault, and the simple door–slab gives place to a stone door, hinged, or sliding in a grooved frame. Cremation was occasionally practised in the Hellenistic Age, but the regular custom was to bury the body; during the Bronze Age in a sitting or a contracted posture, in all later periods lying at full length. Stone coffins (sarcophagi), with a lid, were used occasionally by the rich from the sixth century onwards, and wooden coffins in the Graeco–Roman period. There is always as rich a tomb–equipment as the mourners could afford, of personal ornaments, wreaths, provisions, weapons, and other gear, especially pottery; and terra–cotta figures of men, animals, furniture, and other objects for the use of the deceased. In Graeco–Roman tombs pottery is supplemented or replaced by glass vessels, and coins are frequent, and are important evidence of date. Most of our knowledge of Cypriote arts and industries comes from this tomb–equipment, which should therefore if possible be preserved entire and kept together, tomb by tomb; not neglecting the skeletons themselves, which are of value to indicate changes in the island population. The position of tombs was often marked by gravestones above ground; these remain scattered in the surface soil, or collected to block the entrances to later tombs. They are frequently inscribed. A very common form in Greco–Roman times is the cippus , a short column, like an altar.
Pottery and other objects from tombs, and also from settlements, is classified as follows:
Stone Age: not clearly represented in Cyprus; but some of the earliest tombs (with rude varieties of red hand–made ware) contain no metallic objects, and may belong to the latest neolithic period. Stone implements are very rare, and should be carefully recorded, with a note of the spot where they were found.
Bronze Age, early period (before 2000 B.C.): polished red ware, hand–made, sometimes with incised ornament filled with white powder.
Bronze Age, middle period (2000–1500 B.C.): polished red ware, and also white hand–made ware with painted linear ornament in dull black or brown.
Bronze Age, late period (1500–1200 B.C.): degenerate polished red and painted white ware; wheel–made white ware with painted ornament in glazed black or brown, of the 'Late Minoan' or 'Mycenaean' style introduced from the Aegean; various hand–made wares of foreign styles, probably from Syria or Asia Minor.
In these periods, weapons, implements, and ornaments are of copper (with bronze in the 'late' period); gold occurs rarely; terra–cotta figures are few and rude; engraved seals are cylindrical like those of Babylonia.
Early Iron Age: wheel–made pottery, either white or bright red, with painted geometrical ornament in black (supplemented on the white ware with purple–red); there is also a black fabric imitating metallic forms.
The early period (1200–1000 B.C.) marks the transition from bronze to iron implements, with survival of Mycenaean decoration on the pottery, and replacement of cylindrical by conical seals.
The middle period (1000–750 B.C.) has purely geometrical decoration: terra–cotta figures are modelled rudely by hand, and painted like the pottery.
The late period (750–500 B.C.) shows foreign influences from Greece and from Phoenicia or Egypt, competing with and enriching the native geometrical style. Scarab seals, blue–glaze beads, and other personal ornaments, and silver objects, appear. Terra–cotta figures stamped in a mould occur side by side with modelled.
Hellenic Age, with increasing influence of Greek arts and industries.
Early or Hellenic period (500–300 B.C.): the native pottery degenerates, and Greek vases and terra–cottas are imported and imitated; jewellery of gold and silver is fairly common and of good quality; with engraved seals set in signet rings: the bronze mirrors are circular, with a handle–spike.
Middle or Hellenistic period (300–50 B.C.): the native pottery is almost wholly replaced by imitations of forms from other parts of the Greek world, especially from Syria and Asia Minor: large handled wine–jars ( amphorae ) are common: terra–cottas and jewellery also follow Greek styles: coloured stones are set in rings and ear–rings.
Late or Graeco–Roman period (50 B.C.–A.D. 400): pottery is partly replaced by vessels of blown glass: clay lamps, red–glazed jugs, so called 'tear–bottles' of spindle–shapes, ear–rings of beads strung on wire, bronze rings and bracelets, circular mirrors without handles, and bronze coins are characteristics.
Byzantine Age (after A.D. 400): Christian burial in surface graves supersedes the use of rock–hewn tombs: funerary equipment goes out of use, except a few personal ornaments, which are of mean appearance, and may bear Christian symbols. Domestic pottery is coarse, ungraceful, and frequently ribbed on the outside. Clay lamps have long nozzles, and Christian symbols. Glass becomes clumsy and less common; and glazed bowls and cups come into use. Occasional rich finds of silver plate (salvers, cups, spoons, &c.) and personal ornaments, have been made among Byzantine ruins.
On mediaeval and later sites, various glazed fabrics of pottery are found, and occasionally examples of the glazed and painted jugs, plates, and tiles known to collectors as 'Rhodian' or 'Damascus' ware.
Inscriptions occur on settlement–sites, in sanctuaries and associated with tombs: usually cut on slabs or blocks of soft limestone, though marble and other harder stones were used in Hellenistic and Roman times. Besides the ordinary Greek (see [Illustration IV]), and Roman alphabets the Phoenician alphabet (see [Illustrations X] and [XI]) was in use at Kition (Larnaca), in the great sanctuaries at Idalion (Dali), and occasionally elsewhere; and from early times until the fourth century a syllabary peculiar to Cyprus, often very rudely hewn, in irregular lines, on ill–shaped blocks. Such 'Cypriote inscriptions' (see accompanying [Illustration VII]) are of great value and interest, and have been often overlooked among building material drawn from old sites. In all doubtful cases, a 'squeeze' should be made by one of the methods described in the first part of this volume and submitted to the Keeper of Antiquities. The stamped inscriptions on the handles of wine–jars are worth preserving, as evidence for the course of trade.
Coins were issued in Cyprus from the sixth century onward; first in silver; later (in the fourth century B.C.) occasionally in gold, and from the fourth century commonly in copper. A Ptolemaic coinage succeeded in the third century that of the local rulers; the Roman coinage, with inscriptions sometimes in Greek, sometimes in Latin, lasts from Augustus to the beginning of the third century. Coins of the Byzantine Emperors and of the Lusignan Kings are common.
