Unnumbered pageScan 37 of 42
-20-
island. Than came the Sea People (and Philistine) invasion at the beginning of the XIIth c. which ended the Bronze Age culture in the island as a whole and opened the Iron Age or Chypriote Fer I period, Late Cypriote III. After having burnt down the achaian residence in Enkomi and settled in the island, the invadors with their navy now based on the southern ports of Cyprus, advanced further, to be defeated by Ramsès III, ca. 1163.
Thos who had remained in Cyprus, mixed with the r[handwritten: e]emnants of the Bronze Age population, soon restaured the activity and prosperity of Enkomi.The well known coppe ingots found these belong to this XIIth c. period, as well as the ivories now in the British Museum. It is during this period also that we observe a general determination of the climate in the island which caused the lower part of the town to be flooded during the winter rains and to be partially abandonned. Floors were raised and windows and doors blocked in order to cope with the situation. This return of a cooler and wetter climat after the dry continental climat which caracterized the Late Bronze Age, has been observed also in protohistoric Europe, where it profoundly affected the Early Iron Age cultures (Hallstatt period) and contributed to set in motion ethnic migrations which eventually upset the whole fabric when reaching the Mediterranean.
Mycenae was probably during the first half of the XIIth c. and soon afterwards, the granary ware which in Argos is contemporay with these events, maker its appearance also in Early Iron Age or Sea People levels of Enkomi (floor levels III and II) to become the predominant pottery there int the latest
65 figures hard to readstruck struck outadded written in above” jug ditto, and what it repeatsword reading not certain