Instruction.—A general system of grants in aid of elementary schools was established in 1882. There are some 300 connected with the Greek Orthodox Church, and 160 elementary Moslem schools. Aid is also given to a few Armenian and Maronite schools. Among other schools are a Moslem high school (maintained entirely by government), a training college at Nicosia for teachers in the Orthodox Church schools, Greek high schools at Larnaca and Limasol, an English school for boys and a girls’ school at Nicosia. By a law of 1895 separate boards of education for Moslem and Greek Christian schools were established, and in each district there are separate committees, presided over by the commissioner. An institution worthy of special notice is the home and farm for lepers near Nicosia, accommodating over a hundred inmates.
History and Archaeology down to the Roman Occupation
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[1] and Halá Sultán Teké near Larnaca may perhaps be early, like the Palestinian cromlechs; but the vaulted chamber of Agia Katrína near Enkomi seems to be Mycenaean or later; and the perforated monoliths at Ktima seem to belong to oil presses of uncertain but probably not prehistoric 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. Its remains have been carefully studied both on settlement sites at Leondári Vounò and Kalopsída, and in tombs in more than thirty places, notably at Agia Paraskevì, Psemmatisméno, Alámbra, Episkopì and Enkomi. Throughout this period, which began probably before 3000 B.C. and ended about 1000 B.C., Cyprus evidently maintained a large population, and an art and culture distinct from those of Egypt, Syria and Cilicia. The Cypriote temper, however, lacks originality; at all periods it has accepted foreign innovations slowly, and discarded them even more reluctantly. The island owes its importance, therefore, mainly to its copious supply of a few raw materials, notably copper and timber. Objects of Cypriote manufacture are found but rarely on sites abroad; in the later Bronze Age, however, they occur in Egypt and South Palestine, and as far afield as Thera (Santorin), Athens and Troy (Hissarlik).
The Bronze Age culture of Cyprus falls into three main stages. In the first, the implements are rather of copper than of bronze, tin being absent or in small quantities (2 to 3%); the types are common to Syria and Asia Minor as far as the Hellespont, and resemble also the earliest forms in the Aegean and in central Europe; the pottery is all hand-made, with a red burnished surface, gourd-like and often fantastic forms, and simple geometrical patterns incised; zoomorphic art is very rare, and imported objects are unknown. In the second stage, implements of true bronze (9 to 10% tin) become common; painted pottery of buff clay with dull black geometrical patterns appears alongside the red-ware; and foreign imports occur, such as Egyptian blue-glazed beads (XIIth-XIIIth Dynasty, 2500-2000 B.C.),[2] and cylindrical Asiatic seals (one of Sargon I., 2000 B.C.).[3]
In the third stage, Aegean colonists introduced the Mycenaean (late Minoan) culture and industries; with new types of weapons, wheel-made pottery, and a naturalistic art which rapidly becomes conventional; gold and ivory are abundant, and glass and enamels are known. Extended intercourse with Syria, Palestine and Egypt brought other types of pottery, jewelry, &c. (especially scarabs of XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties, 1600-1200 B.C.), which were freely copied on the spot. There is, however, nothing in this period which can be ascribed to specifically “Phoenician” influence; the only traces of writing are in a variety of the Aegean script. The magnificent tombs from Enkomi and Episkopì illustrate the wealth and advancement of Cyprus at this time.[4]
It is in this third stage that Cyprus first appears in history, under the name Asi, as a conquest of Tethmosis (Thothmes) III. of Egypt (XVIIIth Dynasty, c. 1500 B.C.),[5] yielding tribute of chariots, horses, copper, blue-stone and other products. It was still in Egyptian hands under Seti I., and under Rameses III. a list of Cypriote towns seems to include among others the names of Salamis, Citium, Soli, Idalium, Cerynia (Kyrenia), and Curium. Another Egyptian dependency, Alašia, has by some been identified with Cyprus or a part of it (but may perhaps be in North Syria). It sent copper, oil, horses and cattle, ivory and timber; under Amenophis (Amenhotep) III. it exported timber and imported silver; it included a town Şiķra, traded with Byblus in North Syria, and was exposed to piratical raids of Lykki (? Lycians).
The decline of Egypt under the XXth Dynasty, and the contemporary fall of the Aegean sea-power, left Cyprus isolated and defenceless, and the Early Iron Age which succeeds is a period of obscurity and relapse. Iron, which occurs rarely, and almost exclusively for ornaments, in a few tombs at Enkomi, suddenly superseded bronze for tools and weapons, and its introduction was accompanied, as in the Aegean, by economic, and probably by political changes, which broke up the high civilization of the Mycenaean colonies, and reduced them to poverty, isolation and comparative barbarism. It is significant that the first iron swords in Cyprus are of a type characteristic of the lands bordering the Adriatic. Gold and even silver become rare;[6] foreign imports almost cease; engraved cylinders and scarabs are replaced by conical and pyramidal seals like those of Asia Minor, and dress-pins by brooches (fibulae) like those of south-eastern Europe. Representative art languishes, except a few childish terra-cottas; decorative art becomes once more purely geometrical, but shows only slight affinity with the contemporary geometrical art of the Aegean.
Lingering thus in Cyprus (as also in some islands of the Aegean) Mycenaean traditions came into contact with new oriental influences from the Syrian coast; and these were felt in Cyprus somewhat earlier than in the West. But there is at present no clear proof of Phoenician or other Semitic activity in Cyprus until the last years of the 8th century.
No reference to Cyprus has been found in Babylonian or Assyrian records before the reign of Sargon II. (end of 8th century B.C.), and the occasional discovery of Mesopotamian cylinders of early date in Cyprus is no proof of direct intercourse.[7] Isaiah (xxiii. 1, 12), writing about this time, describes Kittim (a name derived from Citium, q.v.) as a port of call for merchantmen homeward bound for Tyre, and as a shelter for Tyrian refugees; but the Hebrew geographers of this and the next century classify Kittim, together with other coast-lands and islands, under the heading Javan, “Ionian” (q.v.), and consequently reckoned it as predominantly Greek.