Middle and Late Bronze Age Levantine amphorae and maritime trade in the Eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus

In this seminar for the ComPAS project at the Archaeological Research Unit of the University of Cyprus, Cydrisse Cateloy presents her doctoral research on Middle Bronze Age and Late Bronze Age Levantine transport amphorae and outlines her work on imported containers in Cyprus.

Cateloy argues that the common label "Canaanite jar" is a misnomer: these vessels were produced across the entire Levant, and their two handles, narrow necks, and tapered bases define them as maritime transport amphorae. Her corpus comprises 200 complete or nearly complete vessels from 46 sites. To record them, she designed a contouring square for profile drawings and tested volumetric protocols on ten intact amphorae from the Grand Ribaud F shipwreck, finding polystyrene beads accurate to within one percent of water measurements and PotUtility to within three percent.

Combining morphology and capacity across 27 types, Cateloy traces shifting second-millennium BC exchange networks. In Middle Bronze II (Middle Cypriot III to Late Cypriot IA), central Levantine Type 3C1 amphorae reached Kommos, Enkomi, and a tomb at Arpera. By Late Bronze IIB (Late Cypriot IIC), earlier networks split: large northern Levantine biconical amphorae (27 to 33 litres) went mainly to Cyprus, while smaller southern conical vessels (10 to 14 litres) went to Egypt. Six of the eight largest amphorae in the corpus came from Cyprus, alongside oversized Type 7B2 examples such as one from Pyla-Kokkinokremos. Within ComPAS, she will expand this study to fragmentary vessels in Cyprus, Early Iron Age material after 1200 BCE, Egyptian amphorae, Aegean stirrup jars, and Tell el-Yahudiyeh juglets.