Understanding Interactions Between Iron Age Polities in Cyprus through the Microscopic Lens

Summary

This paper will address economic and political interactions of two Cypriot polities during the Iron Age prior to political transitions in about 450 BCE. Idalion is a polity in the interior, near the copper-bearing Troodos Mountains and Kition is a port town on the southern coast. These polities are separate by 20km of rolling hills and plains. By 450 BCE, Kition had obtained political control of Idalion, but there has been little research about these two urban areas interactions prior to this event. I have performed preliminary analysis of 100 thin sections to determine if in a mineralogically similar region one can differentiate between production locations and determine types of interaction. Using this data I have found that production characteristics such as the type clay processing, sieving, the speed of the wheel, and firing temperature were most informative. I applied a chaîne opératoire analysis to understand the way potters learn and adapt. Periods of stasis and change in production styles over several hundred years suggest a long-time relationship between the two localities, long before one politically overtook the other.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17488