Compendium

Reading paths

Curated routes through the compendium: a handful of pages in a sensible order, each with a short note on what it adds. Follow one from start to finish, or step off wherever something catches your eye.

10 paths

Introductory · 10 steps · 2 hr
Start here: Cyprus in ten pages
One page per period, from the island's first human visitors to the last Cypriot kings.
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1. The Chronology of Ancient Cyprus
2. Cyprus Before Humans: Dwarf Hippos, Dwarf Elephants and the First Visitors
3. Neolithic Cyprus
4. Chalcolithic Cyprus
5. Early Bronze Age Cyprus
6. Middle Bronze Age Cyprus
7. Late Bronze Age Cyprus
8. Cypro-Geometric Cyprus
9. Cypro-Archaic Cyprus
10. Cypro-Classical Cyprus
Intermediate · 10 steps · 2 hr 25 min
Copper island
How the Troodos ores shaped Cyprus, from hammered native copper to oxhide ingots and Roman mines.
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1. Chalcolithic Cyprus
2. Copper Metallurgy in Ancient Cyprus
3. Gold, Silver, Tin, Arsenic and Iron in Ancient Cyprus
4. Weapons of Bronze Age Cyprus
5. Late Bronze Age Cyprus
6. Ugarit and the Levant
7. Egypt
8. Hittite Empire and Cyprus
9. Seafaring and Ships in Ancient Cyprus
10. Roman Cyprus
Introductory · 10 steps · 1 hr 55 min
Reading Cypriot pottery
How to tell the island's main wares apart, from Red Polished to Black-on-Red.
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1. The Pottery of Ancient Cyprus
2. Types of Ware
3. Red Polished Ware
4. White Painted Ware
5. Pottery Kilns and Firing in Ancient Cyprus
6. Base Ring Ware
7. White Slip Ware
8. From Bronze to Iron: Cypriot Pottery c. 1300–950 BCE
9. Bichrome Ware
10. Black-on-Red Ware
Intermediate · 10 steps · 1 hr 50 min
Shapes and motifs
Bowls, jugs and amphorae, and the circles, lotuses and single figures painted on them.
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1. Pottery Shapes
2. Bowls
3. Tulip Bowls and Cult Vessels
4. Jugs (Oinochoe)
5. Amphora
6. Motifs of Cypriot Pottery
7. Triple Crossing Lines
8. Circles
9. Lotus Flowers and Lotus Friezes on Cypriot Iron Age Pottery
10. Free-Field Style: Birds, Bulls and Lotus on Cypro-Archaic Jugs
Intermediate · 10 steps · 2 hr 20 min
Gods, graves and offerings
How Cypriots buried their dead and what they gave their gods, from house burials to sanctuaries.
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1. Society, Ritual, and Identity in Ancient Cypriot Mortuary Practice
2. Neolithic and Chalcolithic Burial in Cyprus
3. Bronze Age Chamber Tombs
4. Vounous and Early Bronze Age Burial
5. Tulip Bowls and Cult Vessels
6. Base Ring Figurines (Astarte Type)
7. Architectural Transformations in Ancient Cyprus
8. Archaic Limestone Statues
9. Horse and Rider Figurines
10. Temple Boys
Intermediate · 10 steps · 2 hr 15 min
Cyprus and its neighbours
Egypt, Ugarit, Crete, Mycenae, Phoenicia and the empires, in the order Cyprus came to know them.
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1. Neighboring Cultures
2. Egypt
3. Ugarit and the Levant
4. The Minoans
5. Hittite Empire and Cyprus
6. The Mycenaeans and Cyprus
7. The Philistines
8. The Phoenicians
9. Neo-Assyrian Empire and Cyprus
10. Achaemenid Persia
Introductory · 10 steps · 2 hr 25 min
Everyday life
Houses, food, cloth and health in the farming villages where most Cypriots lived.
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1. Subsistence, Craft, and Community in Prehistoric and Archaic Cyprus
2. Architectural Transformations in Ancient Cyprus
3. Village Life in Early Bronze Age Cyprus
4. Village Life in Middle Bronze Age Cyprus
5. Village Life in Late Bronze Age Cyprus
6. Food and Diet in Ancient Cyprus
7. Food Storage in Ancient Cyprus: Pits, Pithoi and Storerooms
8. Spindle Whorls and Textile Tools in Ancient Cyprus
9. Clothing and Dress in Ancient Cyprus
10. Medicine and Healing in Ancient Cyprus
Introductory · 10 steps · 2 hr 15 min
Figures and statues
From small Neolithic stone figures to the painted limestone votaries of the Archaic sanctuaries.
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1. The Statues of Ancient Cyprus
2. Neolithic and Picrolite Figurines
3. Cruciform Figurines
4. Plank Figures
5. Red Polished Zoomorphic Vessels and Animal Figurines
6. Base Ring Figurines (Astarte Type)
7. Snowman Figurines
8. Archaic Limestone Statues
9. Painted Stone: Colour on Cypriot Limestone Sculpture
10. How Cypriot Figurines Are Classified
Intermediate · 10 steps · 2 hr 25 min
Kingdoms of the Iron Age
How the Cypriot city-kingdoms rose, wrote, fought, paid tribute and finally lost their kings.
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1. Cypro-Geometric Cyprus
2. Writing and Literacy in Ancient Cyprus
3. The Phoenicians
4. Neo-Assyrian Empire and Cyprus
5. Cypro-Archaic Cyprus
6. Arms and Armour of Iron Age Cyprus
7. Fortifications in Ancient Cyprus: From Khirokitia to the Siege of Paphos
8. Achaemenid Persia
9. Cypro-Classical Cyprus
10. Hellenistic Cyprus
Intermediate · 6 steps · 1 hr 35 min
Collecting, looting and the law
How Cypriot antiquities left the island, what changed in 1974, and what can be owned today.
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1. The Antiquities Trade and Cyprus
2. The Legal Export of Cypriot Antiquities
3. Looting in Occupied Northern Cyprus after 1974
4. Stone Plank Figures
5. How Cypriot Figurines Are Classified
6. Collecting Cypriot Antiquities Today: Law, Provenance and Due Diligence