Metallic Status Symbols from Cypriot Early Iron Age Elite Burials (LCIIIB/CG)

Christian Vonhoff of the University of Bochum examines four rare categories of bronze and iron objects from Late Cypriot IIIB and Cypro-Geometric burials: helmets, shepherd's crooks, mace heads and tridents. Rather than everyday weapons or tools, he argues that their rarity, materials and deposition in wealthy graves mark them as insignia of social rank and authority during the emergence of new elites at the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age.

Vonhoff begins with the three known Early Iron Age crested helmets from Cyprus: a complete conical bronze helmet with repoussé bosses from Palaepaphos-Skales Tomb 188, and two pairs of bronze cheek pieces from Kourion-Kaloriziki Tomb 40 (reconstructed as helmet parts by Hartmut Matthäus and Gisela Schumacher-Matthäus rather than Hector Catling's shield) and Palaepaphos-Plakes Tomb 144. He compares the conical form to Hittite, North Syrian and Neo-Assyrian reliefs, while tracing the embossed rosette motifs on the Kaloriziki cheek pieces and the composite helmet type to Central European Urnfield traditions and the Submycenaean helmet from Tiryns.

The second category is the socketed bronze shepherd's crook from Cypro-Geometric II Tomb 409 at Lapithos, placed alongside seven Late Bronze Age Cypriot examples from Enkomi, Sinda, Hala Sultan Tekke and museum collections. Dismissing practical pastoral use, Vonhoff connects the crook to the Homeric formula "shepherd of the host" and to New Kingdom Egyptian royal and divine iconography of the crook and flail.

He next classifies Cypriot Early Iron Age mace heads into three types: tubular bronze mace heads with central ribbed swellings and projections from Amathus, Ayios Tychonas, Palaepaphos-Skales and Tamassos; a miniature bronze rosette mace head from Amathus Tomb 547; and a spherical iron mace head from Palaepaphos-Skales Tomb 74. Lacking Late Bronze Age Cypriot predecessors, these are interpreted through North Syrian and Iranian parallels and Assyrian palace reliefs as imported ceremonial sceptres. The fourth category is a large iron trident from Palaepaphos-Plakes Tomb 142, which Vonhoff compares to earlier Cypriot bronze tridents from Lapithos, Pera and Hala Sultan Tekke Tomb 23 and to Levantine iron examples from Tell el-Hammah and Lachish.

In a substantial discussion afterwards, Vassos Karageorghis and other participants debate Bronze Age depictions of maces, the southern coastal distribution of these tombs, the Kourion sceptre and the role of sceptres as emblems of specific authority rather than royal regalia, and the relation of these rare objects to bronze and iron obeloi and firedogs.