BCE Levant.2 Edrey, M. (2018). Towards a Definition of the pre‐Classical Phoenician Temple, Palestine Exploration Quaterly 150/3, pp. 184–205. A Synthesis of “Phoenician” sacral architecture from the Iron Age to the Achaemenid period (1200–332 BC).
3 Elayi, J., Elayi, A.G. (2014). A Monetary and Political History of the Phoenician City of Byblos in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.E. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. One of the most complete works about the coins of Achaemenid Byblos, with references to the studies of both authors about the coins of Sidon and Tyre.
4 Elayi, J., Elayi, A.G. (2015). Arwad, cité phénicienne du nord (Transeuphratène: Supplément (Paris), 19). Pendé: J. Gabalda.
5 Lipschits, O., Oeming, M. (eds.) (2006). Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Reflects by now the last state of knowledge about Judea in the Achaemenid time.
6 Nunn, A. (2000a). Der figürliche Motivschatz Phöniziens, Syriens und Transjordaniens vom 6. bis zum 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis: Series Archaeologica 18). Freiburg/Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. The most complete overview of the material culture of the Levant in Achaemenid times.
7 Rehm, E. (2010). The Classification of Objects from the Black Sea Region Made or Influenced by the Achaemenids. In J. Nieling and E. Rehm (eds.), Achaemenid impact in the Black Sea. Communication of powers, Black Sea Studies 11, Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, pp. 161–194.
8 Rehm, E. (2013). Toreutische Werke in Zentrum und Peripherie – Gedanken zu Stil und Werkstätten achämenidischer und achämenidisierender Denkmäler. In M. Treister and L. Yablonski (eds.), Einflüsse der achämenidischen Kultur im südlichen Uralvorland, (5.–3. Jh. v. Chr.), Wien: Phoibos Verlag, pp. 35–52. Both are attempts to classify the gradation of “Achaemenid” objects found in the provinces between imports to copies or local creations.
9 Stern, E. (2001). Archaeology of the Land of the Bible II: The Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian Periods 732–332 BCE. New York: Doubleday. A readable compendium on all aspects of material life within the territory of present‐day Israel/Palestine.
10 Stucky, R., with S. Stucky (2005). Das Eschmun‐Heiligtum von Sidon: Architektur und Inschriften (Antike Kunst: Beiheft 19). Basel: Birkhäuser. Opus magnum is the summing‐up of the available knowledge about the sanctuary of Eshmun near Sidon, which is one of the most peculiar and therefore most important ones.
CHAPTER 19 Cyprus
Anna Cannavò
The archeological evidence concerning Cyprus in the Persian period is scanty and scattered. Even if the number of excavations has increased impressively during recent decades, the knowledge of the two‐centuries‐long permanence of Cyprus within the Achaemenid Empire (c. 525–332 BCE) is still far from being satisfactory. Especially limited is the evidence concerning the relationships between the Achaemenids and the Cypriot kingdoms, and the way they integrated the administrative and tributary organization of the empire; the Cypriot civilization of the Persian period, better known, rarely shows direct and evident connections with the Achaemenid world (Zournatzi 2008, 2011).
Since the beginning of the Archaic period (750 BCE), and more probably even before (Iacovou 2002, 2013a), Cyprus was divided into a number of small kingdoms, struggling against each other for access to primary resources and markets (Figure 19.1). The entrance of the island into the Persian Empire, around or slightly before 525 BCE (Watkin 1987), did not radically change this state of affairs: through their voluntary submission (Herodotus [Hdt.] 3.19.3; Xenophon [Xenoph.] Cyropaedia 7.4.1–2 and 8.6.8), the Cypriot kings held the right to strike their own coins (see Chapter 57 Royal Coinage) and to pursue their own political and territorial goals, as long as they did not interfere with Persian interests. The history of the Persian period in Cyprus, as long as we can reconstruct it from the Greek and Cypriot sources, is essentially the history of inter‐island conflicts based on internal dynamics (see Chapter 44 Cyprus and the Mediterranean). If sometimes (as in the case of the Cypriot participation in the Ionian Revolt, or the reign of Evagoras of Salamis) they seem to acquire a wider resonance, we are rarely able to appreciate the Persian attitude toward them. One case is exemplary of our difficulties: the bronze tablet with a long Cypro‐syllabic inscription found in Idalion in the mid‐nineteenth century, and referring to a siege of the city by Medes and Kitians, is still under debate because of the Persian participation in a territorial attack which would otherwise seem a purely Cypriot internal affair (the last assessment by Georgiadou 2010). Gjerstad's interpretation (1948: pp. 479–481) of the Persian/Kitian coalition as a sign of the ethnic polarization arisen in Cyprus after the Ionian revolt (the Kitians, that is Phoenicians, being allied of the Persians against the Cypro‐Greek kingdoms of the island) has been correctly dismissed by Maier (1985), but since then no better explanation has been found.
Figure 19.1 Map of ancient Cyprus.
© A. Flammin, Y. Montmessin, A. Rabot/UMR 5189, HiSoMA, MOM.
We can distinguish two main levels of interconnections between Persia and Cyprus during the two‐centuries‐long Persian control of the island. As the first level, the presence of Persian administrative or military officers, both through the installation of permanent control points, at least during some critical phases, and more often through non‐permanent and occasional contacts, is particularly difficult to assert because of the ambiguous and poor evidence. A second level, justifying of the Persian or Persianizing taste of some Cypriot products of this period, is that of the circulation of Persian models or objects (especially some of them, such as metalware, jewelry, and seals: Zournatzi 2008) whose ideological value was particularly interesting for the self‐definition and legitimization of the Cypriot elites.
Persian Presence in Cyprus: The Architectural Evidence
Some monumental buildings and structures documented in the western part of the island and dating from between the end of the Cypro‐Archaic and the Cypro‐Classical I period (that is, the fifth century BCE) are usually considered as the most eloquent evidence concerning the actual Persian presence in Cyprus.
The remains of what seems to be a siege mound discovered in the 1950s outside the northwestern gate of the Palaepaphos city wall (on the Marchello hill), are usually taken as the archeological confirmation of Herodotus' statement that after the repression of the Cypriot uprising in 498 BCE, all the rebellious Cypriot cities were besieged, the most dramatic siege being that of Soloi (Hdt. 5.115); the archeological material (ceramics, but also the great number of Cypriot sculptures and votive inscriptions apparently sacked from a sanctuary close to the walls and assembled to raise the ramp) indicates a dating of the mound to around 500 BCE (Maier 2008, Leibundgut Wieland and Tatton‐Brown 2019; here Figure 19.2). Nevertheless, the Palaepaphos Urban Landscape Project seems to provide elements which contradict the interpretation of these remains as a siege ramp: the outside face of the city wall, against which the ramp leans, should in fact be interpreted as the inner side, and the ramp could better be considered as a votive deposit (Iacovou 2008, 2013b, 2019). As the urban organization of Palaepaphos is largely unknown, there is still general agreement around the traditional
