42 A. Bernard Knapp
In my view, the materiality of twelfth–eleventh-century-BCCyprus offers reasonable evi-
dence for a movement of people that eventually became of lasting historical significance
for Cyprus. Memories of such a migration may generate myths and stories about origins
and identities. Through hybridization practices (Voskos and Knapp 2008), the identities
of migrants and the people with whom they settle typically become transformed, not
least in learning to share a common language. Thus, Iacovou (2005: 132) notes: “It is
not ethnicity, therefore, that produces a shared language; it is a shared language that may
gradually create or contribute toward an ethnic bond.”
We therefore return full circle to the issue of “ethnicity.” Archaeologists, ancient histo-
rians, and philologists working on Early Iron Age Cyprus hold different views of ethnic-
ity. Some have tried to demonstrate the presence or even the dominance of “Aegean,”
“Phoenician,” or “Eteocypriote” ethnic groups on the island at this time (Iacovou 2005;
see also Egetmeyer 2009). Gjerstad (1979: 232–3), and Karageorghis (2005) argued
that at least some Phoenicians had settled on the island, in particular at Kition, by the
mid-ninth centuryBC. It cannot be demonstrated, however, that any Phoenician polity
held political or economic control over any part of Cyprus at this time, even though
some of Kition’s rulers in the ninth and earlier eighth centuriesBCmight have taken the
titlemlk(“king”) to assert control in the face of increasing Phoenician contacts (Smith
2008: 265).
In the view of Reyes (1994: 11–21), by the Cypro-Archaic I period (ca. 750–600BC),
only two ethnic groups inhabited the island: “Cypriotes” (including former migrants
from Greece) and “Phoenicians.” Egetmeyer (2009: 88–90), however, maintains
that—at least at Amathus—“Eteocypriote” people and their language continued to exist
into the fourth centuryBC. Many archaeologists working in the eastern Mediterranean
still assume that ethnic groups can be readily identified in the material record, through
artistic and architectural styles or in figural representations. As argued in the preceding
text, however, the material symbols of ethnicity are difficult to isolate in prehistoric
contexts. These difficulties are compounded when, as here, archaeologists are trying to
identify two or three distinctive ethnic groups based on a material repertoire that, by the
Cypro-Geometric (CG) period (ca. 1050–750BC), is largely homogeneous islandwide
(even if a mixture of distinctive elements is evident).
To take but one example: LC IIIB tombs from theSkalescemetery at Palaipaphos, like
those from some surrounding cemeteries of CG I date, are for the most part chamber
tombs with very similar mortuary goods (summarized in Leriou 2002: 175). Iacovou
(2005: 129) has criticized attempts to see an ethnic mosaic in the necropolis atSkales,
arguing that the early CG mortuary deposits around Palaipaphos (and elsewhere) were
“...the well-cared-for burial plots of securely established, culturally homogeneous and
quite prosperous communities.” Moreover, many material features of Early Iron Age
Cyprus—Proto-White Painted pottery, scepters and mace heads, mortuary practices and
grave goods, human and zoomorphic representations, and the use of a Cypriot syllabary
for writing Greek—reveal clearly the hybridization of Cypriot, Levantine, and Aegean
elements: none can be taken as final proof for a specific ethnic origin (Knapp 2008:
286–90).
Taking all these factors into account, it may be suggested that, during the twelfth–
eleventh centuriesBC, some migrants from the Aegean became established in Cyprus.