Pondering the Cypro-Phoenician conundrum. The Aegean view of a bewildering term

CYPRU

S AN

D TH

E AEG

EAN

IN TH

E EARLY IRO

N A

GE

BANK OF CYPRUS CULTURAL FOUNDATION

CYPRUS AND THE AEGEAN INTHE EARLY IRON AGE

The Legacy of Nicolas Coldstream

Edited by Maria Iacovou

9 789963 428793

Early Iron Age Greek vases exported from the Aegean to Cyprus. All four come from Amathus tombs (clockwise, T.443 : 85/1, T.99 : 1, T.95, T.389 : 49); they were published by J. N. Coldstream.

cover spread long_Layout 1 04/09/2012 12:55 ΜΜ

CYPRUS AND THE AEGEAN IN THE EARLY IRON AGE

THE LEGACY OF NICOLAS COLDSTREAM

Coldstream Papers d_Layout 1 15/10/2012 5:25 ΜΜ Page 1

Co-ordination: Lefki MichaelidouText editing: Ian ToddDesign /Typesetting: Akis IoannidesPrinting /Binding: Kailas Printers & Lithographers

The Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation and the Editor wish to thank the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus for permission to use on the book cover photographs of vases from the Department’s archive.

© 2012, Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation, Nicosia

Bank of Cyprus Cultural FoundationPhaneromenis 86 – 90, 1011 NicosiaP.O. Box 21995, 1515 Nicosiawww.boccf.com

ISBN 978-9963-42-879-3


BANK OF CYPRUS CULTURAL FOUNDATION

CYPRUS AND THE AEGEAN INTHE EARLY IRON AGE

The Legacy of Nicolas Coldstream

Edited by Maria Iacovou


Proceedings of an archaeological workshop held in memory of Professor J. N. Coldstream (1927– 2008)

Monday, 13 December 2010Archaeological Research UnitUniversity of Cyprus


Foreword

Editor’s Introduction: Nicolas the symposiast and his brood of Greek symposiasts

Abbreviations

Chronological Table

John Nicolas Coldstream: a personal appreciation of his legacyDespina Pilides

Phoenicia, Cyprus and the Aegean in the Early Iron Age: J. N. Coldstream’s contribution and the current state of researchNota Kourou

Euboean mobility towards the north: new evidence from the SporadesAlexandros Mazarakis Ainian

Phokis and East Lokris in the light of interregional contacts at the transitionfrom the Late Bronze to the Early Iron AgeAntonia Livieratou

9

11

21

23

25

33

53

77

Cοntents

Coldstream Papers d_Layout 1 15/10/2012 5:25 ΜΜ

Cretan bronze stands of Cypriot types from sanctuaries and cemeteries: Cretan society in the Early Iron AgeGeorge Papasavvas

‘Creto-Cypriot’ and ‘Cypro-Phoenician’ complexities in the archaeology of interaction between Crete and Cyprus Antonis Kotsonas

Pondering the Cypro-Phoenician conundrum. The Aegean view of a bewildering termGiorgos Bourogiannis

External and internal migrations during the 12th century BC. Setting the stage for an economically successful Early Iron Age in CyprusMaria Iacovou

The origin and use of metals in Iron Age CyprusVasiliki Kassianidou

Cypriot polities in the Early Iron AgeAnna Satraki

Cypriot sanctuaries and religion in the Early Iron Age: views from before and afterGiorgos Papantoniou

La production céramique de Kition au Chypro-Géométrique I Anna P. Georgiadou

Aspects of hunting in early Greece and Cyprus: a re-examination of the ‘comb motif ’Vicky Vlachou

The ‘originality of ancient Cypriot art’ and the individuality of performing practices in protohistoric CyprusManolis Mikrakis

List of Contributors

129

155

183

207

229

261

285

321

345

371

395


The present volume is a tribute to the memory of an internationally ac-claimed scholar and long-time friend of Cyprus; it is published by the Bank ofCyprus Cultural Foundation as a token of our gratitude for his invaluable contri-bution to the field of Cypriot archaeology. During a crucial period, when therewas no formal university programme on the history and archaeology of Cyprusanywhere in the world, Professor J. N. Coldstream had taken it upon himself toshow through his teaching, research and publications the significance of Cypriotmaterial culture as a vital component of Mediterranean archaeology. In recogni-tion of his work, Professor Coldstream was invited in 1986 by the Bank of CyprusCultural Foundation to give the Second Annual Lecture on the History and Ar-chaeology of Cyprus. This institution, the first that was formally approved by theBoard of Directors, and the oldest of the Foundation’s annual activities, was ini-tiated in 1985 with a lecture by the late Jean Poulloux, the French archaeologistwhose name has been inextricably linked with the excavations of Salamis. At thetime, Cyprus was trying desperately to heal some of the open wounds (still opentoday) inflicted by the invasion of 1974: the occupation of territories had led tothe loss of archives and libraries, monuments and sites of primary cultural andarchaeo-historical value. Given annually by a distinguished personality in the fieldof history and /or archaeology, the Annual Lecture and its publication were partof a policy, the explicit target of which was to remedy these vast loses by updatingthe study of the cultural profile of the island with scientifically first rate papers.Each lecture was published as an elegant booklet that was widely distributed to

Foreword

9


10

LEFKI MICHAELIDOU

libraries in Cyprus and, above all, to academic institutions overseas. In 2003, 18years and 18 published Annual Lectures later, the Foundation’s Board of Directorsrecognized that the institution had served its purpose well, but it had also com-pleted its cycle.

Founded in 1993, the Archaeological Research Unit of the University ofCyprus—first directed by Vassos Karageorghis and subsequently, and to this day,by Demetrios Michaelides — has gradually incorporated Cypriot archaeologywithin a highly specialized academic environment: international conferences,symposia and cycles of weekly lectures complement the teaching and enhancethe research programmes of the Department of History and Archaeology; at thesame time, they remain open to the international archaeological community andequally to the interested public — as the events sponsored by the Cultural foun-dation always were and will always be.

In view of these dramatically positive developments that are a result of the estab-lishment of the University of Cyprus, the Board of Directors decided that the timehad come to establish a closer synergy with the Archaeological Research Unit—asthe Bank of Cyprus had already done with the University of Cyprus at large. Thespecific area, which requires a joint effort, is recognized by both parties: Cypriotstudies may be thriving today but they are in great need of funds for publicationsand they also require assistance in the distribution of new publications. With thisobjective in mind, the Cultural Foundation has, with great pleasure, undertakento publish and distribute the proceedings of the Workshop that was organizedby the Archaeological Research Unit in memory of J. N. Coldstream (1927–2008). We look forward to a long, scientifically sound and fruitful collaborationthat will enrich Cypriot studies with new and original works by senior as well asyoung scholars.

Lefki MichaelidouDirector, Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation


11

On the 13th of December 2010, a small group of Early Iron Age specialistsfrom Greece and Cyprus, who represent two generations of Greek scholars thathave followed in the footsteps of Professor J. N. Coldstream, met at the Archaeo-logical Research Unit of the University of Cyprus to honour his memory. Withthis meeting, the University of Cyprus and especially the members of the Archae-ological Research Unit, which in the last decade has become the base of the Schoolof Cypriot Archaeology, wished to acknowledge a major debt owed to the lateProfessor Coldstream: in the 1990s, as chairman or member of many selectioncommittees, Coldstream played a decisive role in electing the first professors ofarchaeology for the Department of History and Archaeology. This alone wouldhave been reason enough to devote a Workshop in his memory. There was, how-ever, a less obvious but more intimate purpose behind the meeting — which is re-flected in, and should also explain, the choice of speakers — as we wished to paytribute to aspects of his academic contribution that have had a long-term impacton the archaeology of Cyprus and also on the careers of his Cypriot students. Hisproductive and creative association with Cyprus, from where he regularly har-vested a rich collection of data, which he would then share with his circle of ‘dis-ciples’, fostered the opening of channels of communication and collaboration be-tween Greek colleagues working in the Early Iron Age of Greece and Cyprus.

Many years before the establishment of the University of Cyprus (1992), wherethe field of Cypriot archaeology finally found a long-deserved home in the Ar-

Editor’s Introduction: Nicolas the symposiastand his brood of Greek symposiasts


chaeological Research Unit of the Department of History and Archaeology, NicolasColdstream, Professor of Aegean Archaeology at Bedford College, London (from1975), and then Yates Professor of Classical Archaeology at University College,London (as of 1983), was the only university teacher in Europe to have introducedregular undergraduate courses and graduate seminars on the archaeology ofCyprus. Not many scholars, other than a few ‘natives’ who were struggling to spe-cialise and also stay in Cypriot archaeology in the ‘70s and ‘80s (especially doctoralcandidates and post-doctoral researchers, like some of my Cypriot colleagues andmyself), are able to look back and appreciate the significance of Nicolas’s pioneer-ing academic agenda: he steadfastly, and against the temporal and geographicalconstraint s of the established Classical Archaeology tradition, considered Cyprusan integral part of Aegean studies, in as much as he saw the Aegean not in isolationbut as the central part of the Mediterranean world. He taught, and lived by, thiscredo to the end: he would travel on either side of the Aegean to study Greek pot-tery that appeared in assemblages in the Levant, in Italy, or elsewhere. He alwayskept one step ahead of everybody else as he had an unmatched ability to sew everynew piece of evidence onto a big canvas — where he mapped the multidirectionalmovements of artefacts, ideas and influences that speak of human contacts andare the stuff from which we can begin to approach the history of our sharedMediterranean landscape in the early first millennium BC.

The Mycenaean Seminar, which he ran so diligently in the Institute of ClassicalStudies in London for many years, was not confined geographically or chrono-logically to the Mycenaean culture or even to the archaeology of Greece: it wasthe venue he used so that scholars would lecture in London on research projectsthat concerned the whole of the Central and East Mediterranean in the BronzeAge and Early Iron Age. Thus, promising young archaeologists of many nation-alities who had found a haven in his classes and in his tutoring were also urged torise to the podium of the Mycenaean Seminar, to present their research and de-fend their interpretations. But Nicolas’s tutorial method was not confined to theInstitute; he was a master in developing academic ‘togetherness’— or what onecould perhaps describe better as good manners and good company in the socialpractice of archaeology. Those privileged to know him would agree that organis-ing social gatherings, as a rule in his home, was an integral part of Nicolas’s schol-arly modus operandi. In this, his spouse Nicky Coldstream was his devoted ac-complice; nobody can possibly overlook her contribution. Herself a formidableMediaeval archaeologist, Nicky deserves an honorary degree in Aegean studies,not only for her exquisite drawings of the pottery that Nicolas would study andpublish but also for using her cooking skills to prepare what must certainly have

MARIA IACOVOU

12


amounted to a monumentally long list of dinners at their historic house, blessedby the young Mozart, at 180 Ebury Street. There, shy and reserved juniors cameto sit next to, and converse with, senior scholars— and each other. Was it not thisthat the Greek Symposium was all about? With the Cyprus University Workshopwe attempted to emulate a gathering of old and new symposiasts who cherish thespiritual bonds that Nicolas nurtured between his students and himself, and like-wise among his students.

Like dozens of Nicolas’s one time students who are today distinguished scholars,Nota Kourou (University of Athens), Alexander Mazarakis Ainian (University ofThessaly), Irene Lemos (University of Oxford), Vasiliki Kassianidou (Universityof Cyprus) and Maria Iacovou (University of Cyprus), the five Greek professorswho were asked to convene the Workshop (their number was kept to a minimumso as to give more time and scope to the second generation), had the good fortuneto study and /or work with Nicolas; but the primary force that brought us togetherwas the fact that it is through Nicolas that, since the 1980s, we have come to knowand respect each other. It was Nicolas who showed us, by his own example, thatwe needed each other’s knowledge and first-hand experience of the intricacies ofall matters Aegean and Cypriot. The years went by, but mutual trust carried on;we have often relied on each other’s regional expertise; we have also referred toeach other, and exchanged, promising students who have helped to open up theCypro-Aegean web of communication and sustain a lively archaeological dialogue.The result is an energetic and highly mobile second generation of young EarlyIron Age scholars from Greece and Cyprus who can bridge the geographical—andacademic—distance between the archaeologies of a central Mediterranean region(the Aegean) and an eastern one (the island of Cyprus) with an insightful under-standing of regional differences and a sensitive appreciation of local identities.

In one way or another, the eight second generation representatives who were in-vited to the Workshop belong to this energetic category (the order of names fol-lows the order of papers in the volume). Antonia Livieratou, now in the 9th Ephor-ate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities in the Museum of Thebes, did herdoctoral thesis in the University of Edinburgh with Lemos on the transition fromthe Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age in the Argolid and Central Greece. GeorgePapasavvas, Associate Professor of Classical Archaeology in the University ofCyprus—therefore, a senior member of the second generation—is the Cretan stu-dent of Kourou, who came to Cyprus via Germany to do his doctoral research onan intriguing subject (the thesis was finished in Cyprus at the newly establishedArchaeological Research Unit), which was subsequently defended in the Univer-

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

13


sity of Athens and has since been published by the Leventis Foundation (XάλκινοιΥποστάτες από την Kύπρο και την Kρήτη, Nicosia 2001). Antonis Kotsonas is an-other formidable student of Lemos, who did his doctoral thesis in the Universityof Edinburgh on ceramic styles in Iron Age Crete, and is now an active post-doc-toral researcher at the Amsterdam Archaeological Centre. Giorgos Bourogiannis,who was also urged to look towards Cyprus by Kourou, received his doctoral titlefrom the University of Athens, worked for the British Museum and is now post-doctoral research fellow, responsible for the Cypriot collection, in the Medelhavs-museet at Stockholm. Anna Satraki, my doctoral student since 2005, was claimedby the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus soon after she had defended her the-sis: since 2011, she has been Archaeological Officer responsible for the Larnacadistrict. As I write this Introduction, Satraki’s monograph, Κύπριοι Βασιλείς απότον Κόσμασο μέχρι το Νικοκρέοντα, is being released by the University of Athensin the Archaiognosia publication series. This concise interpretation of the politicalorganization of Cyprus from the Late Bronze Age to the end of the Cypro-Classicalperiod will serve for many years as the most up to date research guide and historytextbook for teachers and students alike. Where Satraki ends, Giorgos Papanto-niou, another one of our cherished University of Cyprus students that went on toearn his doctoral title under the guidance of Christine Morris in the Departmentof Classics at Trinity College Dublin (where he is currently a post-doctoral re-searcher), picks up the thread: his masterful, Religion and Social Transformationsin Cyprus: From the Cypriot Basileis to the Hellenistic Strategos (Leiden 2012) willappear in the Mnemosyne Series of Brill any time now. Anna Georgiadou, theyoungest of all contributors, is an Athenian turned Cypriot ceramic expert: aftershe had devoted her MA thesis to the problem of Cypro-Geometric II—her pointof departure was Nicolas’s paper, ‘On chronology: the CG II mystery and its sequel’(in Iacovou, M. and Michaelides, D. (eds), Cyprus. The Historicity of the GeometricHorizon. University of Cyprus, Nicosia, 1999, 109–18)— she came from Aix-en-Provence to Cyprus where, for the last four years, she has been studying Cypro-Geometric assemblages from all over the island. Georgiadou’s doctoral thesis (‘Lesateliers de la production céramique de la période Géométrique à Chypre (XIe –VIIIe s. av. J.-C.’), which will be submitted jointly to the Universities of Aix-en-Provence and Athens, will serve as a much-needed handbook of the Cypro-Geo-metric pottery, but it will also present a challenging codification of regionalceramic ‘fingerprints’. Manolis Mikrakis, is another student of Kourou, who foundhis way to Cyprus, where he has been working for the Department of Antiquities;in his dissertation, which was defended in 2006 at the University of Heidelberg,Mikrakis dealt with string instruments and the performance of music in theAegean and Cyprus during the Bronze and Early Iron Ages.

MARIA IACOVOU

14


15

Livieratou and Bourogiannis were unable to fly to Cyprus for the meeting butthey submitted their contributions for publication in the volume. Conversely,when due to other pressing commitments, Lemos announced that she could notmeet the deadline for the submission of her contribution, ‘After Nicolas what?The future of Iron Age studies in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean’, wedecided to accommodate a ninth ‘second generation’ paper by Vicky Vlachou,who did her doctoral dissertation with Kourou on the Geometric pottery fromOropos, excavated by Mazarakis Ainian.

The Workshop was opened by the Director of the Archaeological Research Unit,Professor Demetrios Michaelides in the presence of our guest of honour: Dr NickyColdstream. It was addressed by the Director of Antiquities of Cyprus, Dr MariaHadjicosti, who on the previous day had kindly escorted the speakers and otherguests on a study trip that included Amathus and the Limassol District Museum,where Nicolas, always accompanied by Nicky, had spent time working on the pub-lication of some of the earliest Aegean imports to Cyprus.The Director of theBank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation, Mrs Lefki Michaelides, spoke next andpromised to have the Workshop’s proceedings published in recognition of Pro-fessor Coldstream’s early association with the Foundation: back in 1986, he gavethe Second Annual Lecture on the History and Archaeology of Cyprus, on The Orig-inality of Cypriot Art. Little did I know as I returned to Cyprus at the end of 1986from post-doctoral research under Nicolas’s aegis at the Institute (made possiblethrough a BSA Centenary Bursary), that the author of the first book I wouldedit— as part of my ‘handle-it-all’ administrative duties at the newly establishedCultural Foundation — was going to be Professor Coldstream. Published inNicosia in 1987 as a pamphlet, The Originality of Cypriot Art has since been citedin hundreds of works and, not surprisingly, it has also found its place in many ofthe papers in this volume.

Professor Vassos Karageorghis, old friend and associate of Nicolas, talked with un-derstandable emotion of ‘Nicolas Coldstream: The man, the scholar’ (the contentof his contribution was published in CCEC 38 (2008), 13–16). Dr Despina Pilides,one-time student of Coldstream and now Curator of Antiquities in the Departmentof Antiquities of Cyprus, gave a lively presentation of Nicolas as teacher and aca-demic advisor. Ηer contribution, ‘John Nicolas Coldstream: A personal apprecia-tion of his legacy’, is a most appropriate opening paper for the volume.

The invited speakers had not been asked to address a specific research problembut instead to present research topics they were currently working on and wanted



16

MARIA IACOVOU

to share. Thus, the papers do not necessarily ‘talk to each other’; they stand on theirown and, had they been presented as individual seminars at the Institute in Londonsome years ago, we trust that Nicolas would have been there. This created a minorproblem, but a problem nonetheless: the papers’ order of presentation in the vo -lume. It was easy to put Pilides’s contribution first; it was also reasonable to chooseto continue with Kourou’s ‘Phoenicia, Cyprus and the Aegean in the Early IronAge: J. N. Coldstream’s contribution and the current state of research’. After that,however, I had to improvise: I introduced a (quasi) geographical approach startingfrom the north Aegean, with Mazarakis Ainian’s ‘Euboean mobility towards thenorth: new evidence from the Sporades’, and moving south, first on the Greekmainland, with Livieratou’s paper, ‘Phokis and East Lokris in the light of interre-gional contacts at the transition from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age’, andthen on to Crete: Papasavvas’s ‘Cretan bronze stands of Cypriot types from sanc-tuaries and cemeteries: Cretan society in the Early Iron Age’ and Kotsonas’s ‘“Creto-Cypriot” and “Cypro-Phoenician”’ complexities in the archaeology of interactionbetween Crete and Cyprus’ fuelled the endlessly fruitful dialogue between the twomegalonisoi. I then inserted Bourogiannis’s ‘Pondering the Cypro-Phoenician co-nundrum. The Aegean view of a bewildering term’, so as to begin to sail towardsCyprus and the East. The next five papers are studies firmly rooted in Cyprus. Theyare Iacovou’s ‘External and internal migrations during the 12th century BC. Settingthe stage for an economically successful Early Iron Age’; Kassianidou’s ‘The originand use of metals in Iron Age Cyprus’; Satraki’s ‘Cypriot polities in the Early IronAge’; Papantoniou’s ‘Cypriot sanctuaries and religion in the Early Iron Age: viewsfrom before and after’; and Georgiadou’s ‘La production céramique de Kition auChypro-Géométrique I’.

I decided to end the volume with two contributions upon which Nicolas wouldhave looked with a twinkle in his eyes because of their pictorial theme: Vlachou’s‘Aspects of hunting in early Greece and Cyprus: a re-examination of the ‘combmotif ’, and Mikrakis’s ‘The “originality of ancient Cypriot art” and the individu-ality of performing practices in protohistoric Cyprus’. When Nicolas dealt withpictorial pottery, he allowed himself to express joy and humour and became onewith the ancient potter-painter. ‘Nicolas’s scholarship’, writes Gerald Cadogan in‘Nicolas Coldstream (1927–2008)’, commenting on his unforgettable descriptionof the ‘hippalektryon’ vessel, ‘was and is human and humane, often humorous,blessed with a probing eye […], imaginative and empathetic in his speculationsabout what the ancient artists, craftsmen, merchants and patrons thought andchose …’(BSA 104 (2009), 1–8). I left the paper by Mikrakis to the end because itis a tribute to Nicolas the passionate piano player, who would have a lot in com-


17


mon with Mikrakis in terms of musical interests; also, because the title and contentof the paper is an elegy to the lecture Nicolas gave in Nicosia in 1986.

We asked two very special and long-time friends of Nicky and Nicolas to be chair-persons at the Workshop, and we thank them for the eagerness with which theyaccepted. Robert Merrillees, who had travelled with his wife Helen to Cyprus toshare the experience of the meeting with Nicky and the rest of us, chaired themorning session with his well known gusto. Nadia Charalambidou, a Cypriotscholar of Modern Greek literature, who had known Nicolas and attended hisclasses in the early 1970s, chaired the last session, and gave a touching farewellnote, after which Professor Michaelides asked our guest of honour to the podium.It was then that Nicky had the Workshop’s last word, and as she did I realised thatNicolas and Nicky were last in Cyprus together in the late autumn of 2006 for theconference, Parallel Lives, Ancient Island Societies in Crete and Cyprus, which wasjointly organised by the British School at Athens and the Universities of Crete andCyprus. In fact, the picture on our frontispiece shows Nicolas addressing the Con-ference with his lecture, ‘Cypriot kingdoms, Cretan city-states: what parallels?’,which will appear posthumously, and almost certainly simultaneously with thepresent volume (in BSA Studies 20 (2012), edited by G. Cadogan, M. Iacovou, K.Kopaka and J. Whitley).

In editing the volume I decided that there was no point in trying to create anotherlist of Coldstream’s publications as this has been admirably compiled by two eminent colleagues in two parts: the first can be found in the Festschrift Klados;Essays in Honour of J. N. Coldstream (Bulletin of the Institute of Classical StudiesSupplement 63, 1995), which was edited by Christine Morris; the second, whichcompletes the first with Coldstream’s publications that appeared after Klados, wasrecently compiled by Alan Johnston in an invaluable memoir published in theProceedings of the British Academy 166 (2010), 103–116. I did think, however, ofputting together a Cyprus bibliography of Nicolas but soon realised that it wouldhave been against Nicolas’s own approach to try to isolate the Cypriot (and maybealso Levantine) papers, when in fact Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterraneanplayed their part in almost every article and book he published. As Robert Mer-rillees remarked in ‘Nicolas Coldstream: a personal reminiscence’ (in CCEC 38(2008) 17–18), ‘Only he could have got away with linking Cyprus to all of its com-pass points’. Robert was referring to Nicolas’s last public address about Cyprus,the lecture he gave in London at the inauguration of the A.G. Leventis Gallery ofCypriot Antiquities in 2007, which was entitled, ‘Cypriot interconnections –North, East, South and West’. Finally, I should add that the Chronological Table


18

MARIA IACOVOU

in the volume results from the joint efforts of the contributors, whom I thankonce again for their persistence and patience.

I express heartfelt thanks to Alan Johnston and Nicky Coldstream for guidanceduring the preparatory stages of the Workshop, and for sharing important insideinformation with me that spared me not a few embarrassing errors. My gratitudegoes to another life-long teacher not only because he once again stood by me, thistime when writing the Introduction, but also because it was he, Gerald Cadogan,who had first introduced me to Nicolas and Nicky Coldstream in the early yearsof the 1980s in the Stratigraphical Museum at Knossos.

I was fortunate not to have to shoulder alone the organisation of the Workshop:as on many previous occasions, my colleagues at the Archaeological Research Unit,Vasiliki Kassianidou, Demetrios Michaelides and Giorgos Papasavvas shared theburden with me, and we all relied on the assistance of Irida Chrysafi, who was theUnit’s secretary at the time. The meeting and the journeys of those of our gueststhat had to come from abroad were financed by the University of Cyprus, and thespeakers’ dinner by the Cyprus Tourist Organisation. I should also like to thankDr Pilides for her immediate response to my request for new and good quality il-lustrations of Greek imports from Amathus which, in the able hands of a book

Nicky Coldstream closing the Workshop at the Archaeological Research Unit of the Universityof Cyprus on 13 December 2010.


19


designer as finicky and as creative as Akis Ioannides, were made into a book coverthat Nicolas would have certainly loved. This book has acquired physical substancedue to the combined efforts of Lefki Michaelidou, who is directing the CulturalFoundation’s publication programme, Akis Ioannides, who is enamoured with theart of book design and Ian Todd, a distinguished archaeologist, who accepted toread, correct and improve the English, and in one case the French, text (and ref-erences) of 14 papers written by Greeks; I thank him for his patience and kindness!It was my privilege to work with all three of them on this volume.

As I submit the proceedings to be printed, it seems to me that a wonderful cycle,in which Nicolas was vigilantly following the careers of many of his Greek stu-dents, has come to a close. We shall be blessed if we can do half as much for ourstudents. Syndedemenoi is the title of the Greek edition of a fascinating book byNicholas Christakis and James Fowler, which was originally published in 2009with the meaningful title, Connected – The Surprising Power of our Social Networksand how they Shape our Lives (Little, Brown and Co.). When I came across it in2011, I immediately knew what I would like one to remember when reading thisIntroduction about Nicolas the symposiast and his brood of Greek symposiasts:the reader should not try to seek in the volume a well-defined connecting theme,other than the general one of Cyprus and the Aegean in the Early Iron Age; it isprimarily the authors of the papers that form the connection: the first generationwas connected through Nicolas, while the students of Nicolas’s students form thesecond generation and relate to each other through their teachers. Together wecontinue to celebrate the lasting impact of his legacy. Consequently, the papers inthis volume are a collection of cameos submitted to the memory of a belovedteacher that built the network which brought us together.

Maria IacovouSummer 2012


BibliographicAA Archäologischer AnzeigerAAA Athens Annals of Archaeology, Aρχαιολογικά Aνάλεκτα εξ AθηνώνAASOR Annual of the American Schools of Oriental ResearchADelt Άρχαιολογικόν ΔελτίονAEphem Άρχαιολογική ΕφημερίςAJA American Journal of ArchaeologyAM Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts,

Athenische AbteilungAR Archaeological ReportsARDA Annual Report of the (Director of the) Department of AntiquitiesASAtene Annuario della Scuola archeologica di Atene e delle Missioni

italiane in OrienteAWE Ancient West and EastBAR, Int. Ser. British Archaeological Reports, International SeriesBASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental ResearchBCH Bulletin de Correspondance HelléniqueBICS Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, University of LondonBSA Annual of the British School at AthensBSA Studies British School at Athens StudiesCCEC Cahiers du Centre d’Études ChypriotesClAnt Classical Antiquity

Abbreviations

21


22

JHS Journal of Hellenic StudiesJMA Journal of Mediterranean ArchaeologyMed. Arch. Mediterranean ArchaeologyOJA Oxford Journal of ArchaeologyPAE Πρακτικά της εν Αθήναις Αρχαιολογικής ΕταιρείαςPBSR Papers of the British School at RomePBF Prähistorische BronzefundeRA Revue ArchéologiqueRDAC Report of the Department of Antiquities, CyprusSCE Swedish Cyprus ExpeditionSIMA Studies in Mediterranean ArchaeologySMEA Studi Micenei ed Egeo-AnatoliciWA World Archaeology

ChronologicalThe main terms are in some cases preceded by E (Early), M (Middle), L (Late), S (Sub)

BA Bronze AgeLC Late CypriotLH Late HelladicSM SubmycenaeanIA Iron AgePG ProtogeometricG GeometricEO Early Orientalising


23

Chronological table

1400

1350

1300

1250

1200

1150

1100

1050

1000

950

900

850

800

750

700

650

600

550

500

450

400

350

Late Cypriot IIB

Late Cypriot IIC

Late Cypriot IIIA

Late Cypriot IIIB

Cypro-Geometric I

Cypro-Geometric II

Cypro-Geometric III

Cypro-Archaic I

Cypro-Archaic II

Cypro-Classical I

Cypro-Classical II

Late Minoan IIIA

Late Minoan IIIB

Late Minoan IIIC

Subminoan

Early Proto-Geometric

Middle Proto-Geometric

Early Geometric

Late Proto-GeometricProto-Geometric B

Late Geometric

Archaic

Classical

Late Helladic IIIA

Late Helladic IIIB

Late Helladic IIIC

Submycenaean

Early Proto-Geometric

Middle Proto-Geometric

Late Proto-Geometric

Early Geometric*

Middle Geometric*

Late Geometric

Archaic

Classical

CYPRUS CRETE GREEK MAINLAND

* Coincides with the Sub-Protogeometric (I – III) phases of Euboea and related areas.


183

ABSTRACT

One of J. N. Coldstream’s chief contributions to the Early Iron Age archaeology ofGreece was the detailed examination of the Aegean’s eastward connections. Cyprusand Phoenicia both hold pre-eminent positions in this discussion, with the Phoeniciansin particular being postulated as the primary instigators of Greece’s resumed contactswith the East. It is in this context that Coldstream first focused on Black-on-Red (BoR)pottery, a ceramic class that was hitherto neglected by the Aegean archaeological dis-cipline. Questions associated with the origin, distribution and manufacture of BoR areembedded in almost every discussion of the ware and were of course taken into con-sideration by Coldstream, in many of his influential studies. What is noticeable in manyof them is Coldstream’s indecision over the ware’s origin and chief distributors, whichis reflected in the use of the bewildering term ‘Cypro-Phoenician’.

This paper investigates the use and exact content of the Cypro-Phoenician desig-nation in Aegean contexts, based on a careful examination of the Cypro-Phoenicianoccurrence in Coldstream’s literature. Subsequently it questions the necessity and va-lidity of the term in Aegean Early Iron Age ceramic parlance.

Participation in a volume dedicated to J. N. Coldstream is immenselygratifying and honourable. It can also become a daunting task, however, and Ipresume this is something upon which most contributors would agree. The ar-

Pondering the Cypro-Phoenician conundrum. The Aegean view of a bewildering term

Giorgos Bourogiannis


184

GIORGOS BOUROGIANNIS

chaeological legacy of such an eminent scholar can hardly be evaluated to its fullextent and this is an achievement that certainly lies beyond the scope of this paper.Coldstream’s authoritative work on Greek Geometric pottery (Coldstream 1968)is by all means a major, awe-inspiring academic accomplishment, a blissful pointof reference in the archaeological discipline of Early Iron Age Greece. His typo-logical classifications and chronological assessments (both in terms of absolutedates and relative sequences), set the sound foundations for the study of GreekGeometric culture and remain largely unchallenged to the present day. In his at-tempt to establish a reliable system of absolute chronologies, Coldstream becamea pioneer in the comparative study of Greek Geometric ceramics in Levantineand Cypriot contexts, a specialism he retained and vigorously updated to the endof his life. Based on his profound knowledge of the Greek wares and being fullyconscious of the Levantine chronological discrepancies, Coldstream repeatedlyexamined Early Iron Age Greece in relation to her east Mediterranean neighbours,while addressing issues of contacts and exchanges, ideas and influences, com-merce and entrepreneurship. Within this context, Cyprus holds a focal positionin his work and is constantly present in Coldstream’s studies of interconnectionsbetween Geometric Greece and the east.

I will, however, leave the appraisal of his academic excellence to those who aremore adequate for this assignment, and will turn my attention to a more specific(if not peculiar) matter: the use, and even more so the misuse of the term Cypro-Phoenician that has long tantalized Early Iron Age Mediterranean archaeology.My intention is to present an overview of its occurrence within the Greek geo-metric pottery milieu and subsequently to examine its validity as a ceramic termfrom an Aegean perspective.

The Cypro-Phoenician burden of Black-on-Red ware‘Cypro-Phoenician’ reflects certain assumptions associated with the origin anddistribution of an intriguing pottery class, Black-on-Red. The term has been usedin geographic, cultural, as well as purely ceramic contexts, causing considerableconfusion and ambiguity in either case. Its history and occurrence in archaeolog-ical literature, especially in Levantine contexts, have been masterfully discussedby Nicola Schreiber in her introductory chapter on Black-on-Red ware (Schreiber2003, xx – xxii) and need not be repeated here. I shall only refer to a few focalpoints, prior to proceeding with a closer examination of the Aegean data.

The first secure connection of the term with ceramic products is due toWilliam Albright who referred to Cypro-Phoenician pottery found together withLate Bronze Age Aegean types and Philistine pottery (Albright 1924, 16, note 6).


185

PONDERING THE CYPRO-PHOENICIAN CONUNDRUM. THE AEGEAN VIEW OF A BEWILDERING TERM

It took him another eight years to associate Cypro-Phoenician sherds with theIron Age I stratum of Tell Beit Mirsim (Albright 1932, 54 – 55, 61) and even moreso to explicitly connect them to an imported ‘Cypro-Phoenician perfume jugletdecorated in black paint on a continuously burnished light red slip’ (Albright 1932,72, pl. 51, 9). The significance of this statement is evident since it offers the earliestidentification of the Cypro-Phoenician designation with Black-on-Red ware andthe small neck-ridge juglets in particular, the latter considered imported on Pales-tinian sites. It is from this point, as Schreiber firmly puts it, that the term ‘Cypro-Phoenician’ for the Iron Age Black-on-Red ceramic … enters Palestinian archae-ology (Schreiber 2003, xxi). One can hardly dismiss the Cypro-Phoenicianoxymoron, so aptly highlighted by Maria Iacovou: the construction of the termby the archaeologists of a third cultural area, Palestine, not by those of Cyprus orthe Phoenician homeland (Iacovou 2004, 61). Cypro-Phoenician therefore por-trays a trend that originates and has been primarily applied to the archaeology ofIron Age Palestine, either as a chronological implication (Albright 1924, 16; Taylor1959, 87) or, more frequently, as a convenient albeit ambiguous reference to theproducts of Black-on-Red ware (Stern 1978, 52 – 53; Culican 1982, 60 – 61; Koehl1985, 26, 48 – 49; Mazar 1985, 81 – 82; Ben-Tor and Portugali 1987, 202; Tappy1992, 129). On the other hand, the term Graeco-Phoenician that appears in Myresand Ohnefalsch-Richter’s catalogue of the Cyprus Museum, published in 1899,has a slightly different context and connotation. ‘Graeco-Phoenician Age’ refersto numerous subsequent eras, extending from the first introduction of Iron to thePtolemaic conquest of Cyprus (Myres and Ohnefalsch-Richter 1899, 21 – 22),whereas ‘Graeco-Phoenician Pottery’ corresponds to the different ceramic waresproduced or imported to Cyprus during the aforementioned span of time (Myresand Ohnefalsch-Richter 1899, pl. IV).

The conflicting and overlapping content of the Cypro-Phoenician term inPalestinian contexts has been eloquently summarized by Ruth Amiran (1969,286): ‘‘Cypro-Phoenician’ refers in fact to one ware only, the black-on-red, but forconvenience we have applied it here to all Cypriot and Cypro-Phoenician waresof the Iron Age found in Palestine. The implications of this term are negativerather than positive’. This expansive usage of ‘Cypro-Phoenician’, as a generic ref-erence to several different wares produced in Cyprus and metropolitan Phoenicia(Black-on-Red, Red Slip, Phoenician Bichrome), has not been endorsed by Ami-ran alone (Birmingham 1963, 22 – 23; Stern 1978, 62), whereas in certain casesthe term is considered more appropriate for ceramic products other than thoseof Black-on-Red ware. Gilboa (1999, 12) has identified a Cypro-Phoenician phe-nomenon in the Phoenician Bichrome ware rather than on the products of Black-on-Red, marked by the influence of Cypriot syntax of decoration.


186


Perplexity could only be enhanced by the application of Black-on-Red to anumber of loosely associated or potentially unrelated coarser wares that occurpredominantly at mainland sites. These wares have been viewed as predecessorsof the orthodox, technically accomplished version of Black-on-Red. Even thoughthe fabrication and repertoire of such archaic variants, named Early-, Local- orProto- ‘Black-on-Red’ (De Crée 1991, 95 – 96; Schreiber 2003, 1 – 2) display no im-mediately obvious relation to the ware traditionally called Black-on-Red and pos-sible intermediate stages are difficult to reconstruct, they have been viewed as itslikely ancestral forms or early parallels (Culican 1982, 55).

Cyprus and the Cypro-Phoenician disputeNoticeably, the archaeology of Cyprus portrays a differentiated, less enthusiasticresponse to the use of the Cypro-Phoenician designation. One only needs to recallthe monumental work of Einar Gjerstad who set the foundations of the archaeo-logical discipline of the island and formulated Cypriot typological and chrono-logical sequences (Gjerstad 1948; Åström and Nys (eds) 2008), in order to attaina better-framed description of the corresponding pottery group. Gjerstad con-sciously opted for the descriptive term ‘Black-on-Red’, avoiding the vaguely cul-tural Cypro-Phoenician puzzle. He applied the term to a distinctive Cypriot wareof unusually fine vessels made of well-levigated clay, slipped red or orange, care-fully burnished and painted with thin black horizontal lines, bands and sets ofsmall concentric circles. Although local variants have also been identified andbriefly discussed (De Crée 1991, 98), Gjerstad’s terminology and precise definitionof Black-on-Red are widely endorsed by the archaeologists of Cyprus, to the extentthat within the ceramic milieu of the island, Black-on-Red forms a distinct, se-curely identified group of local production (Smith 2009, 188 – 89, 215 – 17), raisingno questions of a Cypro-Phoenician hybridity. Bikai’s sound knowledge ofPhoenician pottery in Cyprus and the mainland gave a well-articulated outlineof the Cypro-Phoenician obscurity in Cypriot contexts: ‘it is still often difficult todecide what is Phoenician and what is Cypro-Phoenician — Cypriot copies ofPhoenician forms, and Phoenician copies of Cypriot forms’ (Bikai 1987, 2). InCyprus therefore, there was little space for the Cypro-Phoenician conflict to de-velop, explaining the negligible occurrence of the term in the archaeology of theisland (Demetriou 1989, 16).

Nonetheless, it was Gjerstad’s views on the origin of Cypriot Black-on-Red thatled to subsequent reconsiderations of this pottery group (Schreiber 2003, 221 – 25).Gjerstad argued that Black-on-Red developed in Cyprus from a non-Cypriot, pos-sibly Syrian prototype and that its production only became firmly established on


187


the island at the beginning of Cypro-Geometric III. He nevertheless suggested thatthe earliest, unsystematic occurrence of locally produced Black-on-Red vesselsmay have taken place at advanced stages of Cypro-Geometric II (Gjerstad 1948,269 – 70, 287 – 88, 314 – 15, 435 – 36). Gjerstad therefore ascribed a non-Cypriot ori-gin to all Black-on-Red vessels from Cypro-Geometric I and IIA contexts, whichhe associated with some other production area where Black-on-Red presumablyoriginated. The same applied to 11th and early 10th century specimens from Pales-tinian sites, that he also considered imported (Gjerstad 1953, 23 – 25).

The appearance of mainland versions of ‘Proto-’ Black-on-Red vessels im-ported into Cyprus (De Crée 1991, 96 – 97) corroborates Gjerstad’s initial hypoth-esis, even though evidence is too inconsistent to permit a fully reliable reconstruc-tion either of this ceramic transmission or of the intermediate stages linking thecoarse mainland variants to the refined Cypriot Black-on-Red products. Bikai’sRed Ware (Bikai 1983, 400 – 02), presumably of Phoenician origin, dates betweenLate Cypriot IIIB and Cypro-Geometric I/II and yields the best documented caseof such imports in Cyprus. Vessels belonging to this group are marked by a dis-tinctive red fabric, which is very coarse and soft and has large inclusions. The sug-gestion that these imports may have functioned as predecessors of the technicallyadvanced Black-on-Red of Cyprus rests mainly on the thin black linear or circulardecoration applied on a red surface, a combination that is reminiscent of the re-spective Cypriot group.

Former discussion, however, does not imply that the history of Black-on-Redpottery in Cyprus is yet another case of ceramic mystification.

Our understanding of this pottery class has considerably improved over thepast few years and its Cypriot origin was restored, largely due to Schreiber’s au-thoritative study (Schreiber 2003). In her book, Black-on-Red has been thor-oughly analyzed, and many of its aspects have been clarified and revised. In itsrefined, technically accomplished form, Black-on-Red appears to be an originalceramic product of Cyprus, a hypothesis further corroborated by the results ofscientific analyses (Schreiber 2003, 234 – 39, 308 – 09). Although certain traits as-sociated with mainland, and chiefly with Phoenician pottery classes are thoughtto have provided the initial inspiration for the production of Black-on-Red inCyprus, questions associated with the exact mode of this transmission and itssubsequent Cypriot amendment cannot yet be fully enlightened, due to our un-satisfactory acquaintance with the early variants of Black-on-Red ware(s) in bothCyprus and the Levant. In its Cypriot form however, Black-on-Red was system-atically exported to both east and west, where it has been viewed as a Cypriot im-port, clearly differing from locally-made or other imported pottery classes (Bikai1978, 53, import 1; Schreiber 2003, esp. 239 – 80; Gilboa et al. 2008, 166 – 67; for


188


the Aegean: Bourogiannis 2008; 2009, 122; Kotsonas 2008, 284 – 87). Even withinthe Phoenician ceramic milieu, the Cypriot origin of Black-on-Red pottery hasbeen emphatically stated: ‘Cypriot Black-on-Red was … clearly an import; thiswriter has always been mystified by the suggestion that Black-on-Red is Phoeni-cian’ (Bikai’s note in Coldstream 1988, 37).

The question thus arising is why was Cyprus included in the Cypro-Phoeni-cian dispute, if comprehension of Cypriot Black-on-Red pottery is firmly-grounded and largely unchallenged. The answer ought to be sought amidst twofactoids embedded in the archaeology of the Iron Age eastern Mediterranean.Both of them have generated long and often circular discussions about the mate-rial horizons of Cyprus and her eastern, mainland neighbours:

The first one is shaped on the basis of the vigorous commercial activity ofPhoenicians and Cypriots during the Iron Age, thought to have caused the for-mation of a homogeneous Cypro-Phoenician cultural sphere. Black-on-Red pot-tery fitted perfectly within this assumption, as certain of its morphological anddecorative elements could be related to Cyprus, Phoenicia, or to both of them in-distinctively. Koehl’s statement evokes the almost emblematic status ascribed toBlack-on-Red ware, as a symbol of this suggested Cypro-Phoenician cultural andcommercial interconnection: ‘Cypro-Phoenician’ Black-on-Red … may well beconsidered a trademark of the Phoenician and Cypriot Mischkultur’ (Koehl 1985,26). Similar judgments are less common today than they were a few decades ago(Iacovou 2004; 2006; Jasink 2010), as a result of our enhanced knowledge of thearchaeology and material cultures of both regions.

The second misleading element is closely linked to the long-lasting investigationreflecting on the chronological precedence of mainland Black-on-Red as opposedto its Cypriot counterparts. Dated upon the chronological sequences of biblical ar-chaeology, products of Black-on-Red ware from Palestinian sites occur approxi-mately two centuries earlier than those of Cyprus, a discrepancy not easy to disregardor resolve. Furthermore, Black-on-Red pottery occurs in much greater quantitiesin Cyprus than it does in the Levant, the latter displaying a broad distribution ofthis pottery class albeit in limited numbers (Schreiber 2003, maps 1 – 3). The previ-ously mentioned fact is closely related to questions about the ware’s origin, areas ofproduction and overseas distribution (Iacovou 2004, 62; Schreiber 2003, xix – xx).

To ‘Cypro-Phoenicianize’ or not to ‘Cypro-Phoenicianize’? An Aegean viewthrough the eyes of Nicolas Coldstream Let me now return to my initial question and investigate the occurrence and na-ture of the Cypro-Phoenician term in the Aegean. I considered it appropriate to


189


base my discussion on Coldstream’s authoritative research on Geometric Greece,not only because his academic legacy has to a great extent shaped our understand-ing of this era but primarily because it was Coldstream who first implementedthe Cypro-Phoenician concept in Aegean Early Iron Age archaeology.

Contrary to the Cypro-Phoenician perplexity in Levantine contexts, the Aegeanoccurrence of the term portrays a more comprehensive, albeit not entirely unprob-lematic use. Whenever occurring in the ceramic parlance of Geometric Greece,Cypro-Phoenician is associated with an imported, well-defined pottery class,Black-on-Red, and its locally produced imitations. Exceptions are rare and normallyoccur beyond the Aegean, as in the case of the ‘Cypro-Phoenician’ Bichrome warefrom the south part of the Iberian Peninsula (Coldstream 1977, 241).

As such, Cypro-Phoenician is mostly a Middle and Late Geometric phenom-enon, related to the areas where Black-on-Red imports occur more systematicallyand in greater numbers, namely the Dodecanese (Rhodes and Cos) and Crete. Itis useful to note that although the first Aegean sample of Black-on-Red was pro-duced in Sub-Protogeometric II tomb 79A at Lefkandi (Popham and Lemos 1996,pls 109, 125), the origin of the vase was clearly attributed to Cyprus (Popham andLemos 1995, 154), leaving no space for possible Cypro-Phoenician connotationsto emerge. In spite of her prominent position in the interrelations with the east,Euboea remained largely unaffected by the Cypro-Phoenician dispute, not onlybecause the amount of Black-on-Red pottery from this area is rather negligible,but also because in the original examination of the island’s Near Eastern contacts,potential Cypriot enterprise was not viewed from the confusingly interrelatedCypro-Phoenician perspective (Popham et al. 1980, 355 – 69).

It was in his monumental study of the Greek Geometric pottery styles, thatColdstream (1968) became the agent of the Cypro-Phoenician notion for the firsttime, a role he retained, not without some indecisiveness, for many years to follow.Black-on-Red imports symbolized the arrival of fresh influence from the east intoMiddle Geometric Crete and the Dodecanese and helped to invigorate the hith-erto stagnant ceramic tradition of these areas. This new impetus displayed a verydistinctive ceramic agent, the small ridge-necked juglet, which Coldstream at-tributed to Cyprus. This island was thus not only viewed as the originator ofBlack-on-Red imports but also as the main source of inspiration of the new ce-ramic influence that reached the south and southeast edges of the Aegean: ‘a newform of lekythos … looks to Cyprus for its inspiration: the Cypriot prototype …is the black-on-red one-handled juglet’ (Coldstream 1968, 242). Coldstream(1968, 268) also stressed the composite character of the Middle Geometric stylein the Dodecanese, which combined Attic, Cypriot (referring to Black-on-Red)and indigenous elements. The prominent role of Cyprus as the principal source


190


of oriental inspiration, transmitted through Black-on-Red imports, continued un-broken into the Late Geometric period both in Crete and the Dodecanese (Cold-stream 1968, 250 – 51, 275 – 76).

Nevertheless, his Cypriot-oriented views about the origin of Black-on-Red andits subsequent influence in certain parts of the Aegean, appear radically altered inhis conclusive discussion, in which pottery is placed within its broader historicalcontext. Notwithstanding Cyprus still being acknowledged as the source of Black-on-Red, the Phoenician origin of the fabric is now explicitly worded: ‘Cyprus isthe source of the imported flasks; yet black-on-red is a fabric of Phoenician origin’(Coldstream 1968, 346 – 47). The Phoenician establishment at Kition in the late9th century provided Coldstream with the ideal historic framework, which hethen used to sustain the complete ‘Phoenicianization’ of every commercial activityoriginating in Cyprus from this period onwards. In his view, the westward distri-bution of Black-on-Red as well as ‘any increase in Cypriot trade observable at thistime (second half of the 9th century) must be attributed to Phoenician enterprise’.Having reached this stage, it only took him another page to transform Black-on-Red into a ‘Cypro-Phoenician ware … strong evidence of Phoenician salesmanshipin Aegean waters’ (Coldstream 1968, 348).

It is Coldstream’s firm belief in the ‘formidable mercantile power of thePhoenicians’ that excluded the Cypriots from the circulation of their own ceramicproducts and blurred a clearly Cypriot pottery class into a Cypro-Phoenicianamalgamation. Even when links with Cyprus are clearly manifested and the ce-ramic influence of Cypriot prototypes in both shape and ornament becomes ap-parent, as in the case of Late Geometric Dodecanese, it is still argued that ‘thecommercial initiative in Cyprus rested in Phoenician hands and Cypriot forms(found in the Aegean) were introduced through Phoenician enterprise’ (Cold-stream 1968, 381). From this point onwards, ambiguity over the origin and evenmore so over the carriers of Black-on-Red prevails and the ware is viewed as aCypriot ceramic asset reaching the Aegean through an exclusively Phoeniciancommercial expansion. ‘The Phoenicians supplied Black-on-Red unguent flasksof Cypriot make’, points out Coldstream (1968, 382) in his historic overview ofLate Geometric Crete. Noticeably, although the mercantile activity of non-Phoeni-cian merchants is also postulated (Coldstream 1968, 381, 383 – 86), the Cypriotsare miraculously absent from this scheme, unless they are fully absorbed into thePhoenician entrepreneurship.

The Phoenician appraisal of Black-on-Red pottery was further stressed inColdstream’s article on the Phoenicians of Ialysos (Coldstream 1969). While ex-amining the eastward connections of the Dodecanesian Middle Geometric pottery,Coldstream emphatically referred to the pronounced ridge at the upper handle at-


191


tachment of Black-on-Red juglets, a Syro-Palestinian trait foreign to Cypriot tra-dition. Black-on-Red ware is described as a ‘technique which, as is now becomingclear was introduced from Phoenicia to Cyprus not later than the early 9th century’.The Cypriot manufacture of the Black-on-Red juglets from the Dodecanese is thusno longer noted; on the contrary it is considered ‘reasonable to attribute these im-ports to the commercial enterprise of the Phoenicians … whose earliest interest inthe Aegean trade would be approximately contemporary with the foundation ofthe Tyrian colony at Kition’ (Coldstream 1969, 2). Even though the Cypro-Phoeni-cian term is not explicit in the discussion, the possibility of a Cypriot participationin the circulation of Black-on-Red is entirely dismissed, the Phoenicians beingpostulated as the chief, if not the only instigators of Black-on-Red imports in theAegean. From the middle of the 8th century this Black-on-Red stage of Phoeniciancommercial expansion developed, according to Coldstream (1969, 4), into the es-tablishment of Phoenician unguent factories in Rhodes, which marketed theirproduct in containers locally manufactured by resident oriental craftsmen.

In his authoritative investigation of Geometric Greece, Coldstream (1977)dealt repeatedly with the Black-on-Red pottery and its impact on local produc-tion. In the discussion of Middle Geometric period, Coldstream (1977, 66 – 67)once again stressed the Phoenician origin of Black-on-Red technique, which hadbeen imitated in Cyprus ‘well before Kition’s foundation’. In his view, Phoenicianoriginals of Black-on-Red are sought— and found— in Palestinian contexts datingnot later than the early tenth century. Additionally, Coldstream placed emphasison the strong Phoenician influence steadily accumulating on the island of Cyprus,while he rather astonishingly argued that ‘the vitality of Cypriot culture had be-come increasingly diluted’ as a result of the island’s merging first with the Myce-naean and subsequently with the Phoenician civilizations (Coldstream 1977, 67–68). Here lies perhaps the key to his insistent Phoenician or Cypro-Phoenicianidentification of Black-on-Red ware: the view of Mediterranean trade and inter-action in bipolar terms of Greeks versus Phoenicians, which fails to take into ac-count the activities and distinct identities of other Mediterranean populations.Coldstream was certainly right in highlighting the risks of a hellenocentric ap-proach to eastward contacts, through which ‘the role of the Phoenician trader inthe Aegean was in danger of disappearing altogether’ (Coldstream 1982, 262).Paradoxically, he committed the same mistake he was so cautiously noticing, byputting the role of the Cypriot trader in the Aegean in danger of disappearing al-together in the 9th and 8th centuries BC. This said, it is hardly surprising thatBlack-on-Red imports in Middle Geometric Cos were considered Phoenician(imported Phoenician originals with a shiny orange surface) and no longerCypriot, even though Kition still provided the ideal forward base for any Phoeni-


192


cian commercial ventures to the west, while the presence of the ridge-necked ju-glets in Cos was associated with a Phoenician unguent factory bottling its productin containers manufactured by local potters (Coldstream 1977, 68). This pro-Phoenician preponderance brought along the reassessment of the shape’s origin(as well as that of the pottery class in general), hence the ridge-necked juglet wasrevised into a Phoenician unguent shape embraced by the Dodecanesian style(Coldstream 1977, 95). How secure this re-evaluation of the shape’s origin was ishard to appraise. One can notice, however, that in his overview of the MatureGeometric style in Crete, Coldstream included the ridge-necked juglet in the listof foreign shapes imitated in Crete and ascribed its origin to the ‘Cypro-Phoeni-cian area’ (Coldstream 1977, 99). This new, slightly modified use of the Cypro-Phoenician term, as a geographic designation referring to the production centresof Black-on-Red, offers a clear implication of the ambiguity related to the originof the ware. Black-on-Red could thus be Phoenician, Cypriot, or both, with nosecure or unanimously accepted criteria to help locate its fabrication.

Although one might expect that the increase of evidence during the secondhalf of the eighth century would have helped to clarify aspects of the origin andcirculation of Black-on-Red in the Aegean, things did not move in this direction.On the contrary, the Cypro-Phoenician notion was enlivened and its use becamemore systematic. What remained unaltered was perhaps Coldstream’s reluctance,or indecisiveness, about the enigmatic Black-on-Red phenomenon. While dis-cussing the Black-on-Red ridge-necked juglets from Rhodian Late Geometric con-texts, Coldstream referred to ‘Cypro-Levantine unguent vessels’, a broader termthat encompasses the whole of the Syro-Palestinian littoral rather than Phoeniciaalone. Puzzlingly enough, Rhodian copies of Black-on-Red oinochoai werethought to stimulate the shiny orange surface of Cypriot originals (Coldstream1977, 249), leaving aside previous speculations about the Phoenician origin of theware. Late Geometric pottery of Cos copied the fabric and motifs of the ‘Cypro-Phoenician Black-on-Red model’ (Coldstream 1977, 252), Knossos also producedits own copies of the Cypro-Phoenician flask (Coldstream 1977, 272) and Cypro-Phoenician Black-on-Red unguent shapes are included in the variety of orientalimports that reached Crete in the normal course of trade during the Late Geo-metric period (Coldstream 1977, 289). The Cypro-Phoenician term therefore be-came the most conspicuous reflection of the somewhat blurred, interactional edgesof what is Cypriot and what is Phoenician, in the ninth and eighth century Aegean.

Coldstream returned to Crete on many occasions, as a focal point of the Aegeaneastward connections. In his brief but comprehensive identification of some‘Cypriot traits in Cretan Early Iron Age pottery’ (Coldstream 1979), Black-on-Redjuglets from the area of Knossos were listed as imported Cypriot pottery, associated


193


nevertheless with the ‘Phoenician penetration of Cyprus’. As a result of the sus-pected dual character of the ware, the marketing of eastern unguents in Crete aswell as the Dodecanese was a ‘Cypro-Phoenician enterprise’ (Coldstream 1979,261), one of the few implications perhaps of the potential Cypriot participation inthe proposed Phoenician marketing of unguents in the Aegean.

The bilateral approach to Black-on-Red is prominent also in Coldstream’s com-parative overview of the Phoenician presence in the Early Iron Age Aegean (Cold-stream 1982). The imports and local imitations of various Cypro-Phoenician fab-rics, the most frequent form of which is the small Black-on-Red juglet, are viewedas a strong element of Phoenician enterprise (Coldstream 1982, 268). The Cypro-Phoenician designation of Black-on-Red (Cypro-Phoenician imports/originals)is repeatedly attested (Coldstream 1982, 264, 269), while Kition is once again pos-tulated as ‘the most likely origin for the Phoenician unguent merchants’ who es-tablished factories in Rhodes, Cos and Crete (Coldstream 1982, 271).

It is a couple of years later that the Cypriot provenance of Black-on-Red wasfully restored, in Coldstream’s major study of the Cypriot and ‘Creto-Cypriot’ pot-tery from the North Cemetery of Knossos (Coldstream 1984). Products of Black-on-Red ware are ascribed a Cypriot origin while the small Black-on-Red juglet isreferred to as the commonest shape among Cypriot imports to Knossos (Cold-stream 1984, 131). The emphasis placed on the origin and technical qualities ofthe ware is eloquently summarized in Coldstream’s phrase ‘orthodox CypriotBlack-on-Red’, in which ‘the potting attains a uniformly high standard of precision’(Coldstream 1984, 126, 131). Yet when discussion shifts to freer Cretan improv-isations of Cypriot and other eastern imports, boundaries become loose again.Decorative elements of this hybrid Knossian class draw from the ‘Cypro-Levantinetradition’, although no Cypriot potter would have combined them on the samevessel as the hand of the Cretan improviser did. The possibility of ‘immigrant pot-ters trained in the Cypro-Levantine tradition’, whatever the exact content of thisstatement may be, is also suggested for some of the imitations (Coldstream 1984,134 – 35, 137). It is hard to be certain as to whether this ‘Cypro-Levantine’ influenceon the pottery of Knossos delineates the plurality of individuals of both Cretanand eastern origin, or whether it reflects a more collective action scheme. Whatis explicitly stated, however, is the importance of the Black-on-Red juglet, in thiscourse of ceramic interaction, and the possible existence of a small unguent fac-tory, established at Knossos ‘through Cypro-Phoenician initiative’ shortly afterthe arrival of the first Cypriot Black-on-Red imports (Coldstream 1984, 137). Thepossibility of a more energetic Cypriot participation in this specialized commer-cial venture receives, therefore, another carefully worded implication.

Noticeably, in his subsequent collective studies of Knossian Geometric pottery,


194


Black-on-Red ware is an unquestionable Cypriot product and Cyprus the mostfrequent source of imported pottery to the Knossos area after Attica. In this revisedcontext, the small ridge-necked juglet is the commonest Cypriot type to be exportedto Crete, locally produced imitations seem to imitate Cypriot fabric and CypriotBlack-on-Red epitomized the new impulse reaching Knossos from the east, in theearly eighth century BC (Coldstream 1996, 406 – 08, 419 – 20; 2001, 42). It is in thesame studies that Phoenician pottery is examined individually, its fabrication andshapes being no longer intermixed with products of Black-on-Red ware.

Coldstream’s interpretation of Black-on-Red vessels in Crete and the Dode-canese, which he viewed as the ceramic visualization of an unguent trade origi-nating in the eastern Mediterranean, received a new impetus in 1998 (Coldstream1998). Compared to preceding analyses of the same topic, however, this seems tobe a more flexible (or cautious) re-evaluation of the old working hypothesis, witha less confident designation of the trade’s chief instigators: ‘I have argued for aninitiative of eastern Mediterranean merchants — whether Cypriot, or Phoenician,or even Cypro-Phoenician — exporting unguents in small Black-on-Red flasks,and then setting up Aegean factories staffed by Eastern entrepreneurs… This wasno more than a tentative hypothesis, based on what evidence there was nearlytwenty years ago’ (Coldstream 1998, 255). Coldstream acknowledges that his older,Phoenician approach to Black-on-Red rested on the premise that this pottery classhad its origin in the Phoenician homeland and was exported overseas throughPhoenician initiative. Nevertheless the foundations for this premise were partlytypological and partly circumstantial (Colstream 1998, 258) and not fully sus-tained by either the archaeological contexts of Cyprus and Phoenicia, or by theresults of scientific analyses. As a consequence, Black-on-Red is viewed as aCypriot ware, even though ‘to some extent influenced by a heavier and coarserBlack-on-Red fabric evolved earlier in the southernmost reaches of the Phoenicianhomeland’ and the Cypriot connection displays a clearer articulation throughoutthe article. Nevertheless, this enhanced presence of the Cypriot element in the dis-cussion of the Aegean’s eastward connections, is not accompanied by a completeabolition of the Cypro-Phoenician terminology. Questions about the validity ofthe term ‘Cypro-Phoenician’ for Black-on-Red vessels (Coldstream 1998, 258) aretaken into consideration yet they do not totally discard the Phoenician componentof the Black-on-Red literature. Coldstream refers to the Cypro-Phoenician formof the tall-necked oinochoai from the North Cemetery of Knossos, that portray afree combination of Cypriot and Phoenician features (Coldstream 1998, 256), andhe relates Geometric unguent trade in Crete and the Dodecanese to the Phoeni-cians ‘and especially the Cypro-Phoenicians settled in their overseas colony at Ki-tion’ (Coldstream 1998, 257). From this perspective, Cypro-Phoenician clearly


195


refers to the Phoenicians residing in Cyprus and the area of Kition in particular,rather than being a generic mention of either Cypriots or Phoenicians. It is, pre-sumably, with this meaning — the Phoenicians of Cyprus — that ‘the Cypro-Phoenician peddlers of unguents in the Aegean’ are mentioned towards the endof his article (Coldstream 1998, 260).

I shall complete my discussion of Coldstream’s substantial contribution to thetransmission of the Cypro-Phoenician phenomenon in the Aegean, with one ofhis latest articles, published in 2006. Questions regarding ceramic borrowing, thediffusion of certain pottery trends and the circulation of influences are now placedin a broader Mediterranean context. Black-on-Red ware is included in the dis-cussion under its generic Cypro-Phoenician Black-on-Red designation, the pro-duction of which in Cyprus coincides approximately with the foundation on theisland of the Tyrian colony at Kition (Coldstream 2006, 50). Imitations producedin the Aegean are thought to follow Cypriot originals (and not Phoenician orCypro-Phoenician). Furthermore, the Cypro-Phoenician term retains its geo-graphic connotation, in contexts that seem to imply both the Phoenicians ofCyprus, as well as the Phoenicians and the Cypriots as participants of commonventures. In this rather confusing, ethno-geographic context, ‘Black-on-Red ju-glets alone do not sustain the presence of Cypro-Phoenician immigrants in thesoutheast Aegean’ (Coldstream 2006, 50), whereas special mention is being madeto the ‘Cypro-Phoenician role in the foundation of Carthage’ (Coldstream 2006,53). What both occurrences of the term seem to imply is perhaps Coldstream’stendency to view Cypriot evidence overseas as an indication of either the Phoeni-cian commercial mastership or as the result of a binding Cypriot and Phoeniciantrading strategy; and although plurality of participants is closely linked to the verynature of trade and entrepreneurship, it does not necessarily exclude the possibilityof a Cypriot commercial individuality either. The idea of joint ventures of coursehas not been suggested for Phoenicians and Cypriots alone. Other purely Levan-tine joint schemes have also been postulated (for example Beitzel 2010).

The Cypro-Phoenician concept in the Aegean: a synopsisThe preceding discussion aimed to display the numerous and rather diverse im-plications of ‘Cypro-Phoenician’ in the Early Iron Age archaeology of the Aegean,as well as to highlight Coldstream’s decisive contribution to the transmission anddissemination of the term in Geometric Greek contexts. What is immediately no-ticeable is that neither the use nor the content of the term are entirely consistentin the Aegean archaeological /ceramic milieu. This is a shortcoming that largelyportrays the long-lasting discussions regarding the origin and distribution mech-


196


anisms of Black-on-Red pottery, as well as general assumptions about the superiormercantile qualities and ubiquity of Phoenician traders, that overshadow the ac-tivity of other groups in the same areas.

It has been made clear I hope that in its most common Aegean use, ‘Cypro-Phoenician’ delineates an alternative designation or a supplementary characteri-zation for Black-on-Red pottery, hence labelled Cypro-Phoenician Black-on-Redor simply Cypro-Phoenician Ware. Imported Black-on-Red vessels are subse-quently called Cypro-Phoenician imports whereas locally-produced imitationsdraw from Cypro-Phoenician models or, alternatively from the Cypro-Levantinetradition. The fine quality of Black-on-Red products, reflected by the well levigatedclay, the meticulous treatment of the surface and the accuracy of the decoration,constitutes one of the principal assets of the ware and justifies its successful mar-keting overseas. This qualitative/technical appraisal is summarized in the use ofthe term ‘Cypro-Phoenician fabric’, which actually refers to the fabrication of whatColdstream occasionally calls orthodox Cypriot Black-on-Red, for it is clearly inCyprus where this technical amendment was accomplished. The small ridge-necked juglet is the predominant shape and main ceramic calling-card of Black-on-Red imports in the Aegean, an elegant vessel that was systematically imitatedby indigenous potters. Its focal position in the discussion of contacts and commer-cial interaction explains why the Black-on-Red juglet attained its own distinguishedposition in the ‘Cypro-Phoenician literature’, described as Cypro-Phoenician flaskor Cypro-Phoenician /Cypro-Levantine unguent vessel par excellence.

In this purely ceramic context, therefore, the Aegean use of the Cypro-Phoeni-cian term epitomizes the prevailing bewilderment over the origin of Black-on-Red, which Coldstream himself so eloquently summarized in the phrase ‘whetherCypriot, or Phoenician, or even Cypro-Phoenician’. Black-on-Red could thus bea ceramic product of Cyprus based on older and coarser mainland pottery classes,or a purely Syro-Palestinian ware (masked under the Levantine umbrella term),or even the ceramic effect of the Phoenician establishment at Kition in the ninthcentury. What exactly are the criteria Coldstream used to distinguish betweenthese different categories is hard to tell, simply because there are actually no clearlydefined standards, and limits between different groups are rather indiscernible ifnot contentious. This lack of precision is perhaps the greatest weakness embeddedin the use of ‘Cypro-Phoenician’ in Geometric Greece.

Less frequent in Aegean contexts is the use of ‘Cypro-Phoenician’ as a prima-rily geographic designation, with certain implications about the ethnic groups in-volved in the production, circulation and marketing of Black-on-Red. ‘Cypro-Phoenician area’ is, in this respect, a generic nomination that equally delineatesthe Phoenician homeland and Cyprus, both being postulated as the chief geo-


197


graphic entities where Black-on-Red was produced and from which it was ex-ported. Distribution of Black-on-Red products in the Aegean is subsequently theresult of a Cypro-Phoenician enterprise or initiative, specialized in the productionand trading of unguents. Whether this Cypro-Phoenician venture was based onan equal participation of Phoenicians and Cypriots, or it was initiated by thePhoenician settlers of Cyprus is largely a matter of interpretation, although Cold-stream has systematically argued in favour of the second possibility. Cypro-Phoenician, therefore, is an ambiguous ethnic term that primarily embraces thePhoenicians of Cyprus rather than the Phoenicians and the Cypriots. The Phoeni-cian content of the term is explicitly stated in Colstream’s discussion about ‘Cypro-Phoenicians that settled their colony at Kition’, apparently meaning the inhabitantsof the Phoenician homeland and, subsequently, the Phoenicians residing inCyprus. It is rather exceptional that Cypro-Phoenician includes both the Cypriotsand the Phoenicians, as in the suspected Cypro-Phoenician role in the foundationof Carthage.

The degree to which the Cypro-Phoenician notion penetrated the archaeo-logical literature of Geometric Greece is also of some importance. It is not my in-tention here, of course to produce a comprehensive list of publications in whichBlack-on-Red pottery is discussed. After all, Coldstream was the only scholar whorepeatedly pondered the Aegean dimension of the Cypro-Phoenician issue, withsuch diligence and cautiousness. I have simply selected a few representative cases,indicative of the skepticism often surrounding the use of Cypro-Phoenician inthe Aegean.

What becomes immediately noticeable is that, similarly to Cyprus where thewell-defined qualities of Black-on-Red rendered ‘Cypro-Phoenician’ inconvenientand of little practical value, the Aegean archaeological literature also displays acautious, rather reluctant reaction to this ambiguous ceramic concept. I shall namea few cases only, of both purely ceramic and of more general studies.

Black-on-Red juglets are clearly viewed as imported from Cyprus in Brock’spublication of the Fortetsa tombs (Brock 1957, 191). In Johansen’s authoritativestudy of the Exochi cemetery at Rhodes, Black-on-Red is included in the ceramicproducts of Cyprus, even though a variant of the Cypro-Phoenician term doesappear in his pottery analysis: the ridge-necked juglet is a ‘kyprisch-syrische’ ele-ment (Johansen 1957, 164), attested in Rhodian Geometric contexts. In their de-tailed analysis of the Early Iron Age Mediterranean economy, Sherratt and Sherratt(1993, 365) are amongst the few scholars who use the term in relation to Black-on-Red pottery: ‘Cypro-Phoenician flasks appeared in some numbers on Rhodesand Kos and also in Crete’. In the same article, the Cypro-Levantine notion is alsopresent in connection to both pottery flasks and figured bronze work. Demetriou


198


(1989, 15 – 17) forms an exceptional case in applying the Cypro-Phoenician termto the archaeology of Cyprus as well as to that of the Aegean. Even though importedridge-necked juglets from Crete and the Dodecanese are considered to be ofCypriot manufacture, Cypro-Phoenician is used in an ethno-geographic context,encompassing the Phoenicians living in Cyprus: ‘the oriental shapes that influencedGreece in the second half of the 8th century and early 7th, came via Cyprus withPhoenician Cypriots as active participants in this transportation. Some of theseCypro-Phoenician traders settled perhaps in Rhodes in small numbers carryingwith them some purely Phoenician fabrics already known in Cyprus’ (Demetriou1989, 16). Snodgrass (1971, 78, 84) thought of Black-on-Red juglets as a clearlyCypriot product and their shape was attributed to Cyprus rather than to the Levant.In her discussion of possible Phoenician pottery workshops in the Aegean, Bisi(1987) clearly relates Black-on-Red to Cyprus, avoiding any Cypro-Phoenicianconnotations. The same Cypriot perspective is evident in Matthäus (1998, 142).Boardman also supported the Cypriot origin of Black-on-Red ware, with particularreference to the production of small Cypriot-influenced lekythoi in Late GeometricRhodes. His use of ‘Cypro-Levantine’, a broad term that, as he acknowledges, needscloser definition and analysis, is very judicious and is associated with Al Mina, notwith Aegean contexts (Boardman 1999, 149 – 50; 2004, 154 – 55).

During the last few years in particular, the Cypro-Phoenician attestation inAegean ceramic contexts seems to have further receded. Other groups of materialmay also have retained their Cypro-Phoenician perspective, as in the case of Lang-don (2008, 46 – 47) who mentions a group of Cypro-Phoenician bowls made ofbronze and silver, widely distributed across the Mediterranean from the ninth toseventh centuries BC. In her comprehensive survey of Phoenician imports in EarlyIron Age Greece, Kourou (2008, 308) leaves Black-on-Red products out of herdiscussion, partly because ‘this pottery class is most recently seen more as aCypriot rather than Near Eastern ware’, avoiding the Cypro-Phoenician ambiguityaltogether. Kotsonas (2011a, 141– 44, 150; Kotsonas, this volume) stresses theCypriot origin of Black-on-Red imports in Crete while viewing the technicalvirtues of their locally-produced imitations as a strong indication of Cypriot pot-ters working at Knossos. From a more generic perspective, Osborne (2009, 62 –64) speaks of Phoenician Black-on-Red unguent flasks in the Dodecanese andCrete, but he does not define any Cypro-Phoenician pottery class. In his discus-sion of trade, exchange and foreign contacts in the Aegean, during the ninth andeighth centuries BC, Dickinson (2006, 216, 256) omits the use of the Cypro-Phoenician terminology. Black-on-Red juglets are seen as an ultimately Phoeni-cian type though apparently produced in Cyprus, whereas the revival of prosperityin parts of the Early Iron Age Aegean is associated with ‘adventurous Cypriots


199


and Phoenicians’ (not with Cypro-Phoenicians) who seized favourable opportu-nities to establish long-distance contacts. Wallace (2010, 205, 206, 210, 217) isamongst the few modern scholars insisting on the Cypro-Phoenician interpreta-tion of the Aegean Black-on-Red imports and their local imitations, a decisionthat has been severely criticized by Kotsonas (2011b).

Cypro-Phoenician pottery in the Aegean: some concluding remarksThe preceding analysis firmly indicates that the use of the Cypro-Phoenician con-cept in Greek Geometric contexts is rather obscure and unsatisfactory, as it causesunnecessary confusion and ambivalence. In the majority of its purely ceramic at-testations, the term coincides with Black-on-Red ware, the latter being a highly dis-tinctive, well defined pottery class that, at least in its technically accomplished form,originated in Cyprus. Hence the replacement of Black-on-Red by ‘Cypro-Phoeni-cian’ is raising methodological and definitional discrepancies and should be treatedwith skepticism. Black-on-Red imports in the Aegean do not constitute an exces-sively large corpus. They only include closed shapes and are found in certain areasthat are strategically located along the major intra-Mediterranean sea routes. Theexamination of these imports seems to confirm their entirely Cypriot character interms of fabrication, and style. It also highlights their differentiation from indige-nous production and, more importantly, from Phoenician imports. In the Aegeanmilieu therefore, Black-on-Red ware is a Cypriot product, directly associated withthe corresponding Cypriot class of the Cypro-Geometric III and Cypro-Archaic Iperiods, and displays no Phoenician or ‘Cypro-Phoenician’ features.

Use of the Cypro-Phoenician term, however, as inclusive of both Cypriot andPhoenician elements, may perhaps be appropriate for a distinctive Late Geometricclass of graceful closed vessels, mainly tall-necked trefoil jugs (Figs 1– 2). Althoughthe exact place of their manufacture has not been confirmed scientifically, thesejugs certainly depict an Aegean ceramic phenomenon. The quality of their clayand the treatment of the surface suggest an east Greek, possibly Coan or Rhodianorigin (Bourogiannis 2009, 119 – 20), while their presence in north-central Crete,at Knossos and Eleutherna, confirms their circulation within the Aegean (Cold-stream 1984, 125 – 26, nos 5 – 6; Stampolidis 2004, 257 – 58, no. 296). These vesselsare based on a loose combination of Phoenician and Cypriot elements, mixedfreely to produce an interesting albeit short-lived new form. Thus they display ahybrid ‘Cypro-Phoenician amalgamation’, the latter being a reference to the mix-ture of decorative and morphological features originating in both aforementionedareas. Coated in a thick red slip and decorated with small circles and linear pat-terns, the style and fabrication of these jugs is, however, at home neither in Cyprus


200


nor in Phoenicia but clearly depicts the work of local, presumably Dodecanesianpotters, drawing from their extensive stock of Cypriot and Phoenician ceramicinfluence; a Greek Late Geometric reinvention of various Cypro-Phoenician pot-tery features.

Lastly, the broader, ethno-geographic usage of Cypro-Phoenician in theAegean is closely linked to Coldstream’s tentative hypothesis about unguent fac-tories set up by Phoenicians in Rhodes, Cos and in the Knossos area. I shall notget into this suggestion in any detail, as it has been extensively discussed on anumber of occasions (Hoffman 1997, 176 – 85; Schreiber 2003, 299 – 306; Bouro-giannis 2009, 121 – 22; Bourogiannis forthcoming). The Cypriot provenance ofBlack-on-Red imports, however, as well as the strong Cypriot impact on the ce-ramic production of these areas, raises the possibility of an active Cypriot involve-ment in the suggested venture. If available evidence is not enough to sustain a dy-namic Cypriot participation in these enterprises, then it cannot fully dismiss iteither. Schreiber (2003, 303) noticed this inconsistency in the most explicit way:‘re-examination of the evidence, therefore, from the islands of Rhodes, Cos andCrete, suggests that there is, in fact, no stronger basis on which to associate thePhoenicians with trade in BoR pottery to the west than there is for the Cypriots’.It is highly unlikely that we will ever be in the position to verify either Coldstream’sattractive theory of unguent factories or the precise ethnic composition of anycommercial venture reaching Geometric Aegean from the east. Yet, as long asPhoenicia and Cyprus have established their own, distinct positions in the EarlyIron Age archaeology of the Mediterranean, we can continue to discuss Cypriotsand Phoenicians instead of insisting on their identities fading in the Cypro-Phoenician mirage.

AcknowledgementsI would like to express my gratitude to the organizing committee for inviting me to participatein the Workshop. I am greatly indebted to Professors Nota Kourou and Maria Iacovou in par-ticular for their constant help and support.


201


bibliographyAlbright, W. F. 1924. Excavations and Results at Tell El-Fûl (Gibeah of Saul), AASOR IV.— 1932. The Excavation of Tell Beit Mirsim. Vol. I: The Pottery of the First Three Campaigns,

AASOR XII.Amiran, R. 1969. Ancient Pottery of the Holy Land. From its Beginnings in the Neolithic Period

to the End of the Iron Age. Jerusalem.Åström, P. and Nys, K. (eds) 2008. The Swedish Cyprus Expedition 80 Years. Proceedings of the

Symposium in Honour of the Memory of Einar Gjerstad Held in the Royal Academy of Letters,History and Antiquities, Stockholm, 28 September 2007. Sävedalen.

Beitzel, B. J. 2010. ‘Was there a joint nautical venture on the Mediterranean Sea by Tyrian Phoeni-cians and Early Israelites?’, BASOR 360, 37 – 66.

Ben-Tor, A. and Portugali, Y. 1987. Tell Qiri. A Village in the Jezreel Valley. Report of the Archae-ological Excavations 1975 – 1977. QEDEM 24. Jerusalem.

Bikai, P. M. 1978. The Phoenician Pottery of Tyre. Warminster.— 1983. ‘The imports from the East’, 396 – 406 in Karageorghis 1983.— 1987. The Phoenician Pottery of Cyprus. Nicosia.Birmingham, J. 1963. ‘The chronology of some Early and Middle Iron Age Cypriot sites’, AJA

67, 15 – 42.Bisi, A. M. 1987. ‘Ateliers Phéniciens dans le monde Égéen’, 225 – 37 in Lipiński, E. (ed.), Studia

Phoenicia V. Phoenicia and the East Mediterranean in the first Millennium BC. Proceedingsof the Conference held in Leuven from 14th to the 16th of November 1985. Orientalia Lo-vaniensia Analecta 22. Leuven.

Boardman, J. 1999. ‘The excavated history of Al Mina’, 135 – 61 in Tsetskhladze, G. R. (ed.), An-cient Greeks West and East. Leiden, Boston and Cologne.

— 2004. ‘Copies of pottery: by whom and for whom?’, 149 – 62 in Lomas, K. (ed.), Greek Identityin the Western Mediterranean. Studies in Honour of Brian Shefton. Mnemosyne Supplement246. Leiden, Boston.

Bourogiannis, G. 2008. Κυπριακή και φοινικική κεραμική στο Αιγαίο κατά τους Πρώιμους Ιστο-ρικούς χρόνους: Εμπορικά δίκτυα και το πρόβλημα του ρυθμού Black-on-Red. UnpublishedDoctoral Thesis, University of Athens.

— 2009. ‘Eastern influence on Rhodian Geometric pottery: foreign elements and local recep-tiveness’, 114 – 30 in Karageorghis, V. and Kouka, O. (eds), Cyprus and the East Aegean. In-tercultural Contacts from 3000 to 500 BC. An International Archaeological Symposium heldat Pythagoreion, Samos, October 17th – 18th 2008. Nicosia.

— forthcoming. ‘Who hides behind the pots? A reassessment of the Phoenician presence inEarly Iron Age Cos and Rhodes’, in the proceedings of Le VIIème congrès international desétudes phéniciennes et puniques. La vie, la religion et la mort dans l’univers phénico-punique.Hammamet: 10 – 14 novembre 2009.

Brock, J. K. 1957. Fortetsa. Early Greek Tombs near Knossos. Cambridge.Coldstream, J. N. 1968. Greek Geometric Pottery. A Survey of Ten Local Styles and their Chronol-

ogy. London.— 1969. ‘The Phoenicians of Ialysos’, BICS 16, 1 – 8.— 1977. Geometric Greece. London.— 1979. ‘Some Cypriot traits in Cretan pottery’, 257 – 63 in Karageorghis, V. and Stampolidis,

N. C. (eds), Proceedings of the International Symposium ‘Eastern Mediterranean: Cyprus –Dodecanese – Crete, 16th – 6th cent. BC’, Rethymnon, 1997. Athens.

— 1982. ‘Greeks and Phoenicians in the Aegean’, 261 – 75 in Niemeyer (ed.) 1982.


202


— 1984. ‘Cypriaca and Cretocypriaca from the North Cemetery of Knossos’, RDAC, 122 – 37.— 1988. ‘Early Greek pottery in Tyre and Cyprus: some preliminary comparisons’, RDAC, 35 – 44.— 1996. ‘The Protogeometric and Geometric pottery’, 311 – 420 in Coldstream, J. N. and Catling,

H. W. (eds), Knossos North Cemetery. Early Greek Tombs, Vol. II. The British School atAthens, Suppl. Vol. no. 28. London.

— 1998. ‘Crete and the Dodecanese: alternative eastern approaches to the Greek World duringthe Geometric Period’, 255 – 63 in Karageorghis and Stampolidis (eds) 1998.

— 2001. ‘The Early Greek period: Subminoan to Late Orientalizing’, 21 – 76 in Coldstream, J.N., Eiring, L. J. and Forster, G., Knossos Pottery Handbook Greek and Roman, British Schoolat Athens Studies 7. London.

— 2006. ‘Other people’s pots. Ceramic borrowing between the early Greeks and Levantines, invarious Mediterranean contexts’, 49 – 55 in Herring, E., Lemos, I., Lo Schiavo, F., Vagnetti,L., Whitehouse, R. and Wilkins, J. (eds), Across Frontiers. Etruscans, Greeks, Phoeniciansand Cypriots. Studies in honour of David Ridgway and Francesca Sierra Ridgway. London.

Culican, W. 1982. ‘The repertoire of Phoenician pottery’, 45 – 82 in Niemeyer (ed.) 1982. De Crée, F. 1991. ‘The Black-on-Red or Cypro-Phoenician Ware’, 95 – 102 in Lipiński, E. (ed.),

Studia Phoenicia XI. Phoenicia and the Bible. Proceedings of the Conference held at the Uni-versity of Leuven on the 15th and 16th of March 1990. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 44.Leuven.

Demetriou, A. 1989. Cypro-Aegean Relations in the Early Iron Age. SIMA 83. Göteborg.Dickinson, O. 2006. The Aegean from Bronze Age to Iron Age. Continuity and change between

the twelfth and eighth centuries BC. London, New York.Gilboa, A. 1999. ‘The dynamics of Phoenician Bichrome pottery: a view from Tel Dor’, BASOR

316, 1 – 22.Gilboa, A., Sharon, I. and Boaretto, E. 2008. ‘Tel Dor and the chronology of Phoenician ‘pre-

colonisation’ stages’, 113 – 204 in Sagona (ed.) 2008.Gjerstad, E. 1948. The Swedish Cyprus Expedition Vol. IV Part 2: The Cypro-Geometric, Cypro-

Archaic and Cypro-Classical Periods. Stockholm.— 1953. ‘Correspondence with Professor Einar Gjerstad on the chronology of ‘Cypriot’ pottery

from Early Iron Age levels in Palestine’, BASOR 130, 22 – 27.Hoffman, G. A. 1997. Imports and Immigrants: Near Eastern Contacts with Iron Age Crete. Ann

Arbor.Iacovou, M. 2004. ‘Phoenicia and Cyprus in the First Millennium BC: two distinct cultures in

search for their distinct archaeologies’, BASOR 336, 61 – 66.— 2006. ‘Greeks, Phoenicians and Eteocypriots: ethnic identities in the Cypriot kingdoms’, 27

– 59 in Chrysostomides, J. and Dendrinos, C. (eds), Sweet Land … Cyprus through the Ages:Lectures on the History and Culture of Cyprus. Camberley.

Jasink, A. M. 2010. ‘The role of Cyprus and the Mycenaean / Greek presence in the island fromthe end of Bronze Age to the first phases of Iron Age’, Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici 52,149 – 67.

Johansen, F. K. 1957. ‘Exochi: ein frührhodisches Gräberfeld’, Acta Archaeologica 28, 1 – 193.Karageorghis, V. 1983. Palaepaphos-Skales. An Iron Age Cemetery in Cyprus. Ausgrabungen in

alt-Paphos auf Cypern, Band 3. Konstanz.Karageorghis, V. and Stampolidis, N. (eds) 1998, Proceedings of the International Symposium

‘Eastern Mediterranean: Cyprus – Dodecanese – Crete, 16th – 6th cent. BC’, Rethymnon, 1997.Athens.

Koehl, R. B. 1985. Sarepta III. The Imported Bronze and Iron Age Wares from Area II, X. Beirut.


203


Kotsonas, A. 2008. The Archaeology of Tomb A1K1 of Orthi Petra in Eleutherna: the Early IronAge Pottery. Athens.

— 2011a. ‘Foreign identity and ceramic production in Early Iron Age Crete’, 133 – 55 in Rizza,G. (ed.) 2011. Identità culturale, etnicità, processi di trasformazione a Creta fra Dark Age eArcaismo. Per i cento anni dell scavo di Priniàs. Convegno di Studi (Atene 9 – 12 novembre2006). Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche I.B.A.M. Sede di Catania, Università di CataniaCentro di Archeologia Cretese. Catania.

— 2011b. ‘Review of Saro Wallace, Ancient Crete: From Successful Collapse to Democracy’sAlternatives, Twelfth to Fifth Centuries BC. Cambridge, New York’, Bryn Mawr ClassicalReview, 2011.04.52.

Kourou, N. 2008. ‘The evidence from the Aegean’, 305 – 64 in Sagona (ed.) 2008.Langdon, S. 2008. Art and Identity in Dark Age Greece, 1100 – 700 BCE. Cambridge.Matthäus, H. 1998. ‘Cyprus and Crete in the early First Millennium BC. A synopsis with special

reference to new finds from the Idaean Cave of Zeus’, 127 – 58 in Karageorghis and Stam-polidis (eds) 1998.

Mazar, A. 1985. Excavations at Tell Qasile. Part Two. The Philistine Sanctuary: Various Finds,the Pottery, Conclusions, Appendixes. QEDEM 20. Jerusalem.

Myres, J. L. and Ohnefalsch-Richter, M. 1899. A Catalogue of the Cyprus Museum. Oxford.Niemeyer, H. G. (ed.) 1982. Phönizier im Westen. Die Beiträge des Internationalen Symposiums

über ‘Die phönizische Expansion im westlichen Mittelmeerraum’ in Köln vom 24. bis 27. April1979. Mainz am Rhein.

Osborne, R. 2009. Greece in the Making, 1200 – 479 BC. (Second edition). London, New York.Popham, M. R. and Lemos, I. S. 1995. ‘A Euboean warrior trader’, OJA 14, 151 – 57.— 1996. Lefkandi III. The Toumba Cemetery. The Excavations of 1981, 1984, 1986 and 1992 – 4.

Plates. The British School of Archaeology at Athens. Oxford.Popham, M. R., Sackett, L. H. and Themelis, P. G. 1980. Lefkandi I. The Iron Age. The Settlement,

the Cemeteries. The British School of Archaeology at Athens. Oxford.Sagona, C. (ed.) 2008. Beyond the Homeland. Markers in Phoenician Chronology. Ancient Near

Eastern Studies Supplement 28, Leuven, Paris, Dudley, MA.Schreiber, N. 2003. The Cypro-Phoenician Pottery of the Iron Age. Leiden, Boston.Sherratt, S. and Sherratt, A. 1993. ‘The growth of the Mediterranean economy in the early first

millennium BC’, World Archaeology 24, 361 – 78.Smith, J. 2009. Art and Society in Cyprus from the Bronze Age into the Iron Age. New York.Snodgrass, A. M. 1971. The Dark Age of Greece. An Archaeological Survey of the Eleventh to

Eighth Centuries BC. Edinburgh.Stampolidis, N. 2004. Ελεύθερνα. Πόλη– Ακρόπολη– Νεκρόπολη. Athens.Stern, E. 1978. Excavations at Tel Mevorakh (1973 – 1976). Part one: From the Iron Age to the

Roman Period. QEDEM 9. Jerusalem.Tappy, R. E. 1992. The Archaeology of Israelite Samaria. Volume I. Early Iron Age through the

Ninth Century BCE. Harvard Semitic Studies 44. Atlanta.Taylor, J. du Plat 1959. ‘The Cypriot and Syrian pottery from Al Mina, Syria’, Iraq 21, 62 – 92.Wallace, S. 2010. Ancient Crete: From Successful Collapse to Democracy’s Alternatives, Twelfth

to Fifth Centuries BC. Cambridge, New York.


204


list of figuresFig. 1. Rhodian oinochoe from Tsambikos-Ialysos, tomb 51 (after Bourogiannis 2009, fig. 7).Fig. 2. Trefoil-lipped jug of Bichrome Red, from North Cemetery of Knossos (after Cold-stream 1984, pl. XXIII, no. 5).


205


Fig. 1

Fig. 2


Pondering the Cypro-Phoenician conundrum. The Aegean view of a bewildering term

Documents

Transcript of Pondering the Cypro-Phoenician conundrum. The Aegean view of a bewildering term