The relations between Egypt and Cyprus from Neo-Assyrian to Achaemenid rule (7th-6th cent. B.C.)

Mehl examines relations between Cyprus and Egypt from Neo-Assyrian to Achaemenid rule in two steps. He first reconstructs political events from written sources, namely Assyrian inscriptions, Egyptian inscriptions and papyri, a Babylonian chronicle, and accounts by Herodotus, Diodorus and Xenophon. He then turns to the exchange of goods and the adoption of Egyptian ideas, taking in Egyptian-looking objects from Cyprus, Cypriot products found in Egypt, and symbols adopted in Cypriot art and royal imagery.

Evidence for political rule and evidence for economic exchange, Mehl argues, have to be assessed separately. He treats indirect rule as a form of imperial control in which local kings stayed in office and met obligations to a stronger ruler, and he cautions against inferring political dependence from imported objects alone. Egyptian supremacy over Cyprus cannot be ruled out, in his conclusion, but its beginning cannot be dated securely, and the material evidence does not establish a direct correlation between political rule, trade and the adoption of Egyptian ideas.

For the chronology he considers possible Egyptian supremacy from the reigns of Necho II, Apries and Amasis, beginning as early as about 600 or as late as about 560. The island's shift to Persian dependence he places after the Persian conquest of Lydia, generally dated to 546 BC, and notes a later dating under Cambyses as an alternative (pp. 63–64).