Cypriot Polities in the Decentralised Trade of the 12th Century BC

In this talk, given in Greek at the annual presentation of the archaeological work of the University of Cyprus, postdoctoral researcher Artemis Georgiou examines the participation of Cypriot polities in overseas trade during the 12th century BC, at the end of the Late Bronze Age.

Georgiou begins by introducing her postdoctoral project on the Bronze Age material from Palaepaphos, excavated by the Palaepaphos Urban Landscape Project under Maria Iacovou. She outlines a forthcoming collective volume presenting material from sites including Marcello, with contributions by Susan Sherratt, Priscilla Keswani, Eleni Nodarou, Arianne Jacobs, Maria Dikomitou-Eliadou, Nicole Hirschfeld and Zomenia Zomeni.

Turning to the wider Mediterranean crisis of the 12th century BC, Georgiou notes that while urban centres in the Vasilikos and Maroni river valleys were abandoned, Cyprus did not suffer a general collapse of its urban structures or political organisation. Older scholarship assumed trade ceased because markers of elite exchange, such as oxhide ingots and imported Mycenaean pottery, disappeared. Georgiou argues instead that the collapse of centralised states allowed a pre-existing, decentralised system driven by private initiative to flourish, with coastal Cypriot towns taking a leading role.

She presents three categories of archaeological evidence. First is copper metallurgy and trade. Although oxhide ingots ceased to be produced, primary smelting continued alongside extensive bronze recycling, attested by five bronze hoards at Pyla-Kokkinokremos and scrap cargo on the Cape Gelidonya shipwreck. Lead isotope analysis of post-palatial bronzes from the Aegean, including Naue II swords and violin-bow fibulae, shows compatibility with Cypriot copper slags, while high tin content suggests newly exported raw material rather than recycled metal alone.

Second, as Mycenaean imports ceased, Cypriot workshops produced Aegean-style fine ware (White Painted Wheelmade Ware). Archaeometric analyses show that Cypriot-made Aegean-style vessels were exported in large numbers to Cilicia and the Syro-Palestinian coast, and that Levantine workshops imitated Cypriot prototypes rather than Mycenaean ones.

Third, Georgiou analyses Canaanite jars. She distinguishes between the highly standardised, sharply carinated type associated with centralised trade (as on the Uluburun wreck and at Ugarit), which is rare in Cyprus, and a second, broader-shouldered, less standardised type that continued into the 12th century BC. The majority of Canaanite jars on Cyprus come from 12th-century strata at Hala Sultan Tekke, Kition, Maa-Palaeokastro and Pyla-Kokkinokremos, alongside Egyptian-made variants. Handles incised with marks, continuing the earlier practice of marking Aegean imports with Cypro-Minoan signs and found both in Cyprus and in Philistia, indicate direct Cypriot mercantile involvement in this trade, which also coincided with the island's early role in ironworking.