CYPRUS AND CILICIA IN THE IRON AGE: A REVIEW OF THE EVIDENCE1 (LEV. 6-7)

Abstract

CYPRUS AND CILICIA IN THE IRON AGE: A REVIEW OF THE EVIDENCE1 (LEV. 6-7)

Abstract

To someone studying commercial and cultural relationships between Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean in the Iron Age, and more specifically during the Archaic period, Cilicia appears as a special case. Classical sources witness close and complex links between the two regions, but genuine Cypriote artefacts are relatively scarse in Cilicia and they don’t match, as a whole, the kypriaka exported to the neighbouring countries, i.e. the coast of Asia Minor and the Phoenician mainland. On the other hand, there is an undisputable stylistic and iconographic proximity between Cypriote and Cilician productions, as demonstrated by ceramics, glyptics or even sculpture, which needs to be more closely examined.