Early Enkomi: Regionalism, trade and society at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age on Cyprus

Description

The beginning of the Late Bronze Age on Cyprus saw a range of dramatic changes occurring in the settlement patterns and material culture of the island, accompanied by evidence for increased interaction with the surrounding region. These include population movements from small inland to larger, nucleated coastal settlements, an increase in social stratification and copper production, the first evidence for literacy, and Cyprus becoming increasingly involved in the complex exchange networks of the eastern Mediterranean. Central to any study of the island's prehistory is the coastal settlement of Enkomi, often considered to be the first state-like entity on the island and identified with the Alashiya of contemporary textual. The author's main goal in this volume is to examine the archaeological evidence for the beginnings of the transformation of Cypriot society as it stands, to seek to understand the individual aspects of the process and to separate this from the later LCIIC outcomes. The author utilises the Enkomi pottery assemblage to examine the introduction of wheelmade pottery and thereby investigate the processes through which Cypriot society became highly complex, including whether the evidence points to early centralized control or independent regional developments. However, in order to understand the pottery, it was necessary to investigate all types of archaeological evidence pertaining to the early history of the site and this volume also includes discussion of architecture, tombs and other aspects of material culture. Part 1 provides the theoretical background to investigations of social complexity and discusses the applications. Part 2 addresses the evidence for both settlement and ceramics during the Cypriot Bronze Age. Part 3 is devoted to the analysis of the Enkomi data. Part 4 presents the author's conclusions. Front Cover Title Page Copyright Table of Contents List of Tables List of Figures List of Plates Abbreviations and Terminology Acknowledgements 1. Introduction Part 1: Previous research on Enkomi and Late Cypriot society 2. Modelling Late Cypriot social organisation 3. Production and trade during the early Late Cypriot 4. Other avenues for the investigation of Late Cypriot society Part 2: Settlement, regionalism and pottery on Bronze Age Cyprus 5. The Early and Middle Cypriot (EC–MCII) 6. Pottery of the early phases of the Late Cypriot (MCIII–LCIIB) 7. Middle Cypriot III–Late Cypriot IIB coastal settlements 8. Middle Cypriot III–Late Cypriot IIB specialised sites and inland settlements 9. The ‘urban’ Late Cypriot (LCIIC–III) 10. Summary of Late Cypriot settlement evidence Part 3: The Enkomi evidence 11. History of excavation and description of the site 12. Description of the architectural remains 13. The stratified deposits (Level A–IIA) 14. Analysis of the Enkomi pottery assemblage 15. Pottery wares produced in handmade and wheelmade forms at Enkomi 16. Other pottery wares in the Enkomi assemblage 17. Summary of the Enkomi assemblage Part 4: Conclusions 19. Enkomi, trade and regionalism 20. Assessing pre-LCIIC society in the light of the new evidence from Enkomi Bibliography Appendix 1: Pottery catalogue Appendix 2: Pottery fabric descriptions Appendix 3: Enkomi stratified deposits (Levels A to IIA)