How many Alashiyas were there?

This video essay from the channel Dig. examines the political organization of the Late Bronze Age kingdom of Alashiya on Cyprus, weighing Near Eastern texts against the archaeology of Late Cypriot towns. It opens with the debate framed by Priscilla Schuster Keswani between hierarchical models of a unified island state and heterarchical models of autonomous regional polities.

To show why archaeologists favour a segmented view, the narrator surveys Late Cypriot centres. Enkomi, often proposed as the capital of Alashiya, resembles Ugarit and Alalakh with its orthogonal plan, cultic centres, and fortification wall. Other sites differ: Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios has a palace at the edge of a modest settlement, Maroni has a monumental ashlar building and port facilities without a town, and in the Kouris valley a palatial complex at Alassa-Paliotaverna lies upstream from Episkopi-Bamboula. Petrographic analysis of Alashiya tablets sent to Egypt sources the clay to the southern Troodos foothills near Alassa and Kalavasos rather than Enkomi.

The second half reviews evidence for political division. In the 14th-century Amarna letters, the king of Alashiya denies that his subjects raided Egypt and complains that men of Lukki seized towns on the island. Late 13th-century Ugaritic and Hittite records also indicate ships and leaders operating outside a single king's control, including a treaty addressing both a king and a pidduri official. For the transition from the Middle Bronze Age, the narrator notes mass graves at Pendayia-Mandres, Myrtou-Stephania, and Ayios Iakovos-Melia, inland fortresses, and an east-west ceramic divide. Citing Susan Sherratt, the video concludes that regional elite families controlled copper metallurgy and trade independently while presenting a single Great King of Alashiya for Near Eastern diplomacy.