Ancient Cyprus, an Unexpected Journey

Descrizione

Island communities generally exhibit special socio-cultural and economic features that set them apart from continental ones. The particular geo-cultural condition of Cyprus, within major Mediterranean routes of interaction and commerce, fostered both intense cultural exchanges with the surrounding regions and, at the same time, promoted a local enterprise, which impacted on the islanders’ ideology and economy. This resulted in a dialectic between continuity in preserving original cultural forms and identities, and transition to new practices and ideas, accepting and integrating external input. In selecting this main topic for the 15th Annual Meeting of Postgraduate Cypriote Archaeology, we have imagined this dichotomy and the development of ancient Cypriot society as a long journey, which has always produced unexpected yet fascinating results; some of these are presented in this volume.
As in the previous editions of this conference, the 15th Annual PoCA Meeting, which was held at the University of Torino on November 2015, encompassed numerous presentations by young researchers from various research institutions in Europe, UK and the United States.
The 13 essays included in this volume involve a large chronological horizon from the Bronze Age to the Byzantine and Medieval periods. Different approaches to aspects of art history are discussed, along with technological and social aspects related to specific productions, as well as wider approaches to the use of landscape, the economy, ideology and organization of ancient Cypriot communities.

Contributors: Peter Cosyns, Marialaura Di Giovanni, Alicia M. Dissinger, Richard Maguire, Anaïs Michel, Giulia Muti, Anne Paule, Stavros S. Panayiotou, Veronica Petraccia, Stefano Ruzza, Alessandra Saggio, Chiara Santarelli, Elena Scarsella, Clara Tamburrino, Valentina Vassallo and Mari Yamasaki