Topics
Every compendium entry is filed under a few of the 32 topics below. A topic gathers entries from across the sections, so the page on copper lists period overviews, tools, weapons and neighbouring cultures side by side.
- Animals16 entriesWild and domestic animals of ancient Cyprus, from the extinct dwarf hippopotamus to cattle, deer and birds, known from bones, images and figurines.
- Architecture20 entriesHow Cypriots built houses, sanctuaries, tombs and walls, from round Neolithic dwellings to the ashlar buildings of the Late Bronze Age towns.
- Burial57 entriesGraves, tombs and cemeteries: how the dead were treated and what was buried with them, from Neolithic burials beneath houses to Iron Age royal tombs.
- Chronology and Dating26 entriesHow archaeologists divide and date the Cypriot past, from pottery sequences and period systems to radiocarbon dates and links with dated neighbours.
- Collecting10 entriesThe collectors, dealers and excavators who assembled Cypriot antiquities from the nineteenth century onward, and how their collections formed and dispersed.
- Copper24 entriesThe island's copper ores, how they were mined and smelted, and how the metal shaped the wealth, trade and foreign relations of ancient Cyprus.
- Craft Production69 entriesHow objects were made and by whom: workshops, specialist craftspeople, raw materials and the organisation of production in Cypriot communities.
- Daily Life22 entriesEveryday life in ancient Cyprus: houses and households, food, dress, work and the ordinary routines of village and town life across the periods.
- Figurines23 entriesSmall figures of people and animals in clay and stone, from Chalcolithic picrolite cruciforms and Bronze Age plank figures to Iron Age terracottas.
- Food and Farming17 entriesWhat ancient Cypriots grew, herded, hunted, cooked and ate, and how food was stored and shared, drawn from plant remains, animal bones and vessels.
- Foreign Contacts81 entriesRelations between Cyprus and Egypt, the Levant, Anatolia, the Aegean and later empires, traced through imports, exports, texts and shared styles.
- Glass and Faience3 entriesFaience and glass on Cyprus, from Bronze Age beads and small vessels to core-formed and blown glass, and the question of where they were made.
- History of Archaeology7 entriesThe people and expeditions that uncovered ancient Cyprus, from nineteenth-century diggers to the systematic excavations of the twentieth century.
- Iconography52 entriesThe images and motifs Cypriot artists placed on pottery, figures, seals and metalwork, and the ways scholars have read their meaning.
- Jewelry11 entriesOrnaments worn in life and placed in graves: beads, pendants, earrings, rings and diadems in picrolite, shell, faience, gold and silver.
- Kingship and Politics23 entriesRulers, city-kingdoms and political organisation on Cyprus, from the emerging elites of the Bronze Age to the kings of the Iron Age cities.
- Landscape and Climate7 entriesThe island's geology, coasts, rivers, forests and climate, and how environmental change and earthquakes affected the people who lived there.
- Looting and the Law4 entriesThe laws governing Cypriot antiquities, the legal export permitted in earlier periods, and the looting of the occupied north after 1974.
- Medicine2 entriesHealth, disease and healing in ancient Cyprus, from the evidence of skeletons and medicinal substances to the physicians named in inscriptions.
- Metalwork13 entriesObjects of copper, bronze, gold, silver, lead and iron, and the smiths who cast, hammered and finished them across the Bronze and Iron Ages.
- Museums5 entriesThe museums in Cyprus and abroad that hold Cypriot antiquities, how their collections were formed and what a visitor can see in them today.
- Music3 entriesMusic and music-making in ancient Cyprus, known mainly from figurines of lyre, pipe and drum players and from scenes on vessels and metal bowls.
- Pottery101 entriesPottery made on Cyprus from the first Neolithic vessels to the painted wares of the Iron Age: its fabrics, shapes, decoration and dating.
- Religion and Cult38 entriesSanctuaries, votive offerings, ritual objects and the deities worshipped on Cyprus, and what the archaeological record can and cannot show about belief.
- Sculpture15 entriesLarger statuary in limestone and terracotta, above all the votive figures and heads dedicated in Cypriot sanctuaries from the Archaic period onward.
- Seafaring8 entriesBoats, ships, harbours and sea routes, from the first crossings to the island to the merchant ships of the Bronze and Iron Ages.
- Settlements31 entriesVillages, towns and cities: where people lived on Cyprus, how communities were laid out and how the pattern of settlement changed over time.
- Technology25 entriesTools and techniques, including stone tools, metallurgy, kilns, textile equipment and shipbuilding, and how they developed or arrived on the island.
- Textiles and Dress4 entriesSpinning, weaving and clothing in ancient Cyprus, known from spindle whorls, loom weights, rare fibre remains and the dress shown on figures.
- Trade54 entriesThe exchange of goods between Cyprus and its neighbours, including copper, pottery and luxury objects, and the routes and networks that carried them.
- Warfare11 entriesWeapons, armour, fortifications and the evidence for conflict on Cyprus, from Bronze Age forts to the sieges of the Archaic and Classical periods.
- Writing10 entriesThe scripts used on Cyprus, from undeciphered Cypro-Minoan to the Cypriot syllabary, Eteocypriot inscriptions, Phoenician and the Greek alphabet.