Late Bronze Age Cyprus: Growth and Change in a Complex Society

Alexis Boutin

The comparatively late emergence of social complexity on Cyprus and its integral yet unique role in widespread regional collapse at the end of the 13th century B.C. have long made the island a provocative subject of investigation into the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean. A remarkable number of symposia and individual scholars have broached these topics during the last two decades. This study reviews some of the more worthy efforts and on this basis presents a synopsis of the island's Late Bronze Age existence. It concludes that social complexity comparable to that of other Mediterranean powers arose as internal and external trade networks become entrenched. The social and political configurations that developed enabled it to withstand the economic collapse and population movements that rocked much of the eastern Mediterranean.

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