Gill, 'Archaic Cyprus: a Study of the Textual and Archaeological Evidence', Bryn Mawr Classical Review 9503
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-9503-gill-archaic
@@@@95.3.34, Reyes, Archaic Cyprus
A.T. Reyes, Archaic Cyprus: a Study of the Textual and
Archaeological Evidence. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Pp.
xxiii + 200, 57 pls., 18 figs., 19 maps. $75.00. ISBN
0-19-813227-1.
Reviewed by David W.J. Gill -- University of Wales
(Swansea)
Gill@Swansea.ac.uk
This study of the external and local relations of archaic
Cyprus covers the period from the eighth to the sixth centuries
BC (and in fact into the fifth). It aims to revise the views on
Iron Age Cyprus in the light of research since Einar Gjerstad's
publication of the Swedish Cyprus Expedition in 1948. The book is
divided into three parts: "The Cypriot Kingdoms", "Cyprus, the
Near East, and Egypt", and "Local and Foreign Contacts". It is
thus a work which is of interest to scholars not only of Cyprus,
but also of Egypt, the Near East, and Greece. Three distinct
questions set the framework for the book (p. 3):
1. "To what extent can one establish the chronology of
events mentioned in the written sources?"
2. "How did Cyprus interact with the different foreign
powers of the Near East and Egypt?"
3. "What relations existed between different parts of the
island?"
Given the richness of the archaeological evidence one might
expect much from such a searching strategy.
Although this book "is a much-revised version of the
historical and archaeological framework" derived from his Oxford
thesis, "An archaeological study of the impact of foreign
cultures in Cyprus, from the eighth to the sixth centuries BC,
with particular reference to the evidence of stamp seals" (1989),
the conclusions are rather insubstantial. The available textual
and archaeological evidence does not seem to have allowed R. to
answer the questions he has set himself. Take for example the
textual evidence for links between Egypt and Cyprus (Ch. 4).
There is the comment by Herodotus (2.182.2), "Whereas Amasis made
these dedications [sc. at Samos and Lindos], he seized Cyprus,
the first man to do so, and compelled it to pay tribute" (and see
also E.D. Francis and M. Vickers, "Amasis and Lindos",
BICS 31 (1984) 119-30), and there is the Elephantine stele
of Amasis which records for 570 BC, "As for Apries--the island
[iw = Cyprus] has prepared for him ships overflowing with
countless Greek mercenaries". As R. himself acknowledges, the
evidence for an alliance between Cyprus and Egypt is based on
"little firm evidence" (p. 76), and "there can be no certainty
.. over the nature of the political relationship between Cyprus
and Egypt" (p. 84).
The archaeological evidence also seems unproductive. Take
for example: "The conclusions concerning the relationships
between the different Cypriot kingdoms must remain highly
speculative, dependent, as they are, on evidence that comprises
relatively few objects, often from inadequately recorded sites,
rather than from controlled excavations" (p. 153). The production
centres for pottery cannot be located because the methodology in
analysing the sherds is "problematic" and "the results are,
accordingly, difficult to interpret" (p. 115). Elsewhere results
are said to be "not yet to hand" (p. 101). R. himself admits that
his methodology, viz. the use of archaeological sources,
may be flawed: e.g. in his chapter on "Cyprus and Persia", "to
use architectural ground plans as a basis for reconstructing
Cypriot political history is precarious at best" (p. 92). It was
also disappointing to read in the introductory section in the
chapter on "Internal Relations", "Regional aspects of the
production of terracotta and stone sculptures have only recently
begun to receive attention, and consequently, little, for the
moment, can be said with any confidence" (p. 102). It seems to
this reviewer that either R. should have prepared a more detailed
study himself, or he should have published these tentative views
in another form.
One issue this reviewer feels is not addressed adequately is
that of the intellectual consequences of handling material which
has no secure provenance.[[1]] Historians, and for that matter
archaeologists, are seemingly unaware that the actions of the
antiquities market can corrupt the "canon". Take for example the
Egyptian stone mortar, inscribed with the name of Amasis in
hieroglyphs, "discovered beneath the foundations of an old house
in Larnaca"; R. considers the piece "of little historical value"
as "it probably entered Cyprus as a result of the antiquities
trade in the 19th cent." (p. 72 n. 19). Once we acknowledge this
problem, where do we draw the line? Take the evidence for
Phoenician settlement on the island. "The earliest epigraphical
evidence is a short Phoenician inscription of uncertain meaning
inscribed on the base of a vase made of green stone ... The vase
.. was probably purchased by Cesnola ... in a bazaar at Nicosia
sometime before 1876. Thus, there can be no certainty that it is
from Cyprus, and, consequently, the inscription loses much of its
historical value" (p. 19). The key cuneiform inscription
recording the gifts of seven kings of Cyprus to Sargon II c. 707
has no secure provenance, Idalion and Kition being cited as two
possible findspots (p. 51).
Seals are equally unreliable when it comes to providing a
secure archaeological body of material. The Assyrian stamp seals
from the Cesnola and Pierides collections may reflect "part of
the burgeoning antiquities trade" (p. 61) rather than contact
between Assyria and Cyprus. R. acknowledges that the nineteenth-
and twentieth-century provenances supplied for Cypro-Archaic gems
inscribed in Cypro-syllabic script may not be accurate (p. 123),
and that "it is not possible ... to be precise about the
provenances of most of the East Greek gems found in Cyprus" (p.
145). In his discussion of internal relations on the island, R.
notes, "most of the diagnostic ceramics and glyptics are without
proper archaeological contexts, making it difficult to
reconstruct the precise mechanisms by which an object
characteristic of one part of Cyprus may have found its way to
another. The same problems hold when the external relations of
the island are considered" (p. 102). R. should have made it clear
to the reader which parts of the archaeological evidence are
insecure and which secure. Without this information a new study
is inevitable, as this account cannot be considered trustworthy.
Reyes is inconsistent in the way he discusses material:
"said to be from" appears to be interchangeable with "reportedly
from" (e.g. the bronze head in the Louvre, pl. 57 and p. 147) and
"allegedly from" (e.g. the two bronze statuettes in the Louvre,
pl. 20 and p. 65). As historians we might want to ask some more
questions. Who said it came from Cyprus? How reliable is the
source? The dictum of "what the soldier said" in relation to
scientific excavation remains as true for the 1990s as when it
was coined by Stanley Casson in 1927 (JHS 47 (1927)
298-99). It must be of concern that in Part 1, Chapter 1, and
what is in effect Section 1, the first piece of evidence, a
bronze spit inscribed with the Greek name Opheltas in
Cypriot syllabary has an attached footnote (p. 11 n. 3): "For
doubts about the archaeological context of the spit ...". What
are these doubts? Does Reyes think that they are irrelevant
worries? Can the details be given? The question is then raised in
the mind of this reader, what other pieces of evidence may come
from doubtful archaeological contexts?
The term "allegedly"--which is being increasingly used for
describing provenances for late twentieth-century collections of
antiquities--is used to describe items from the so-called
"Kourion treasure" (pp. 57; 58; 88; there is no entry in the
index). R. fails to mention that the silver bowl inscribed with
the name of Akestor, king of Paphos, had a later inscription, "I
belong to Timukrates"; see also T.B. Mitford, "Akestor, King of
Paphos", BICS 10 (1963) 27-30, and D. von Bothmer, A
Greek and Roman Treasury (New York 1984) 20 no. 10. R.
mentions Mitford's thesis that the hoard--or the parts which
carry the names of Paphians--came from loot from the sacking of
Paphos in 498 (p. 103). This reviewer and Michael Vickers
(Artful Crafts: Ancient Greek Silverware and Pottery
[Oxford 1994] 65) have also suggested that "the objects simply
attest to the xenia between the aristocracy of Paphos and
Curium"; if so, the Kourion treasure could have found a place in
ch. 6, "Internal relations".
In a book which deals explicitly with "archaeological
evidence" one might have expected to read a little more about
archaeological contexts where they are known. Take for example
the Attic black-figured skyphos found at Tamassos. It adds
nothing to science to be told that it is attributed to "the
artist known as the KX Painter" (p. 144); whereas it would have
been useful to know that it was found in "Royal Tomb" no. XII; on
which see R. Nicholls and H.-G. Bucholz, "The provenance of the
Cambridge skyphos by the KX painter", JHS 98 (1978)
162-64.
This preoccupation with attributions is also expressed in
the way that Cypriot pots are ascribed to "the group of
'Fish-Cups'" or to "the 'Figure-on-the Shoulder' jugs" (p. 107).
Although R. states that "ascriptions of [Cypriot] vase-paintings
to the hands of particular artists ... have been accepted as an
initial basis for analysis" (p. 102), he seems unaware of the
controversy surrounding such methodology.[[2]] In the context of
Attic pot-decoration (and we are talking about pots not "vases";
cf. J. Tanner, in Antiquity 68 (1994) 654), Mary Beard has
wisely pointed out that "There is nothing to be said about
[Beazley's artists] that cannot be said about the pots
themselves" (in T. Rasmussen and N. Spivey (ed.), Looking at
Greek Vases (Cambridge 1991) 17). In the absence of
signatures or other documentary records one can only guess--not
assert--that "the workshop [sc. "The NBB workshop"] was founded
by an artist designated the Armidale Painter by Benson" (p. 112),
or that you can identify "artists" working "in the manner of"
another pot-painter (p. 113).
This way of viewing the extant material culture is reflected
in the way the evidence is presented. Take for example R.'s
reading of the story by Polycharmos of Naukratis (ap. Ath.
15.676f), which it is claimed records "the transportation of a
Paphian terracotta figurine" (p. 150 and cf. p. 124). In fact the
Greek text does not record the material used to make the "small
statue of Aphrodite". Presumably R. was aware that terracotta
statuettes survive in large quantities and therefore assumed that
this reference must allude to an object of clay. One also wonders
if R.'s claim that "Cypriot gemstones seem to have had a certain
fame in antiquity" (p. 27) confuses the appreciation of Cypriot
gemstones recorded in ancient writers with modern connoisseurship
of intaglios.
Archaeologists may find R.'s methodology weak. For example
his interpretation of the adoption of the mould for clay figures
as reflecting "an increased demand in East Greece for their
terracottas" (p. 35) seems as dated as the view expressed by F.E.
Adcock in the Cambridge Ancient History (1927) that the
corn barons of the Euxine were connoisseurs of Attic pottery and
terracottas (CAH 5, 174). R. tries to identify the
influence from major centres such as Persia or Egypt in the
Cypriot material record. Such a method is far from secure, and
one wonders whether the search for Egyptian influence on Cypriot
ceramics is flawed when the cock is identified as a motif found
on pottery from Amathus. R. admits, "The cock is not an animal
particularly associated with Egypt" (p. 80) and then notes, "The
cock is usually seen as an Iranian bird". This raises other
issues. How are motifs transferred from one culture to another?
Is such transferral a sign of political imperialism? One might
have expected a little more discussion of this important topic.
There are also examples of intellectual inconsistency. Take the
view that Cypriot terracottas were "less costly alternatives to
limestone votives" (p. 32). Yet, interestingly, when it comes to
Attic pottery, R. considers the influence comes from the less
costly medium. Thus "a metal imitation of a 'Little Master' cup
is reported from a tomb in the Nicosia area" (p. 133).
As far as chronology is concerned, R., wisely perhaps, does
not make his position absolutely clear on archaic chronology. He
crypticly states that "it is now clear that the chronologically
diagnostic archaeological strata in Syria and Palestine (notably
at Al Mina, Tell Abu Hawam, and Megiddo) used by Birmingham [sc.
AJA 67 (1963) 15-42] and others are less well-defined than
had been previously thought" (p. 6 n. 24). Presumably this
accepts the criticisms of Greek pottery in the Near East made by
Michael Vickers and the late David Francis ("Greek Geometric
pottery at Hama and its implications for Near Eastern
chronology", Levant 17 (1985) 131-38; cf. M.D. Herrera and
J. Balensi, "More about the Greek Geometric pottery at Tell Abu
Hawam", Levant 18 (1986) 169-71).
Some of the conclusions drawn from imported Attic
black-glossed pottery may need to be checked. R. claims that "by
the end of the sixth century, Attic black-glazed wares were
reaching Kition, as well as Marion" (p. 142). In fact this
reviewer considers that this group of material did not start
arriving at Marion until after 480 (D.W.J. Gill, Attic
Black-glazed Pottery in the Fifth Century BC: Workshops and
Export (DPhil. diss. Oxford 1986) 333 fig. D). One might also
wish to add to this subject the two "coral red" stemless cups
found at Idalion by Cesnola, and now in the Metropolitan Museum
of Art in New York. As far as Salamis is concerned, R. suggests
that "the sequence of Attic black-glazed ware at Salamis does not
seem to begin until the end of the 5th cent." (p. 142 n. 142),
basing his views on L. Jehasse, Salamine de Chypre viii
(Paris, 1978). The material from the British excavations in the
late nineteenth century might repay renewed study; cf. also R.
Meiggs, The Athenian Empire (Oxford, 1972) 479, for
earlier material. Of importance to R.'s thesis about "External
Relations" is the comparison of Attic black-glossed material
found in the cemeteries of Kameiros on Rhodes and Marion. This
suggests that for most of the fifth century plain Attic pottery
was arriving on Rhodes and on Cyprus at the same rate: D.W.J.
Gill, "The distribution of Greek vases and long distance trade",
in J. Christiansen and T. Melander (eds.), Proc. 3rd Sympos.
Anc. Greek and Related Pottery (Copenhagen 1987) 179 fig. 2.
An appropriate line of enquiry might be to explore the view--
first raised by Martin Robertson (see p. 143)--that Attic pottery
arrived on Cyprus via Al Mina. Again this raises the issue of
ceramic chronology and the re-foundation of Al Mina which may
been in the 470s (see Gill, "Distribution", 182 Appendix A).
The layout of the book is not satisfactory. The insertion of
the list of Cypriot kings would have been appropriate at p. 89
rather than reserved for a Table (no. 4) on p. 162. The
relationships between different cities of the island expressed in
Table 5 (on p. 163) would have fitted in better to the conclusion
on "Internal Relations" (at p. 120). The distribution maps to
illustrate internal relations do not have captions (Maps 1-15).
They could have been enhanced by showing the production centres
and the comparative number of objects found at each site (perhaps
by using circles of varying size). Map 2 (p. 105) for Kourion
appears to combine (without warning!) votives found at Kourion
and terracottas "manufactured" at Kourion and found elsewhere.
It would have been helpful to have had distribution maps for
imports such as Chian amphorae (p. 140). The bibliography is
clumsy; an adapted Harvard system might have made the book seem
more workmanlike. The index is not comprehensive. For example,
ceramics appear "as evidence of internal contact" but not "of
external contact". It might also have been helpful to print
Tables 1 ("The standard chronology for Cypriot history in the
Cypro-Archaic period") and 6 ("Chronology of Cypro-Archaic
History") together or on facing pages. This would have allowed
the reader to see how R.'s chronology differs from Gjerstad's
conclusions.
Despite these reservations, the reviewer found much in the
book that is of value. The bibliography and summaries of
different categories of archaeological evidence (such as
sanctuary types) will serve as a useful path into the more
detailed studies. This reviewer was struck by A.W. Lawrence's
quoted views that "Cyprus could not have been more advanced than
Greece in the production of monumental stone sculpture" (p. 36;
and published in JHS 46 (1926) 163-70), which should
perhaps be seen against the acquisition of the "Fitzwilliam
Goddess" in the same year, claimed to be the earliest stone
sculpture from the Greek world; see K. Butcher and D. Gill, "The
Director, the Dealer, the Goddess and her Champions: the
acquisition of the Fitzwilliam Goddess", AJA 97 (1993)
383-401.
Each of the chapters is introduced by short texts from
ancient and more recent sources (e.g. George Orwell, Plato,
William Shakespeare). The use of a quotation from O.M. Chapman
(Across Cyprus (London, 1937) 126) to introduce the
chapter on "Cyprus and Egypt" (p. 69), is reminiscent of the way
that Sir Leonard Woolley ("Excavations at Al Mina, Suedia I",
JHS 58 (1938) 15-16) interpreted Al Mina in the light of
contemporary Levantines. So far as the three questions posed by
this study are concerned, one is left feeling that R. has
sharpened the chronological framework of archaic Cyprus, but that
the questions relating to external and internal relations were
answered in an inconclusive way.
NOTES
[[1]] Christopher Chippindale has recently drawn attention
to the way that misleading questions have been asked about
Cycladic figures from the Early Bronze Age ("Material and
intellectual consequences of esteem for Cycladic figures",
AJA 97 (1993) 601-59).
[[2]] The most useful discussion can be found in C. Morris,
"Hands up for the individual! The role of attribution studies in
Aegean Prehistory", CambArchJ 3.1 (1993) 41-66, with
accompanying responses.