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.
[ILLUSTRATION VII: BILINGUAL (GREEK AND CYPRIOTE) DEDICATION TO
DEMETER AND PERSEPHONE FROM CURIUM.]