Pyla-Kokkinokremos ( el, Πυλα-Κοκκινοκρεμος) (red
cliff
In geography and geology, a cliff is an area of rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. Cliffs are common on co ...
)
[Excerpt of wall mounted text in exhibit room number 2 at Larnaca District Museum] was a
Late Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
settlement on
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...
, abandoned after a brief occupation.
History
The site of Pyla-Kokkinokremos, located on a rocky plateau, lies about 10 km east of
Larnaca
Larnaca ( el, Λάρνακα ; tr, Larnaka) is a city on the south east coast of Cyprus and the capital of the district of the same name. It is the third-largest city in the country, after Nicosia and Limassol, with a metro population of 144 ...
, ancient
Kition
Kition (Egyptian language, Egyptian: ; Phoenician language, Phoenician: , , or , ; Ancient Greek: , ; Latin: ) was a petty kingdom, city-kingdom on the southern coast of Cyprus (in present-day Larnaca). According to the text on the plaque clos ...
, and some 20 km southwest of
Enkomi
Enkomi ( el, Έγκωμη; tr, Tuzla) is a village near Famagusta in Cyprus. It is the site of an important Bronze Age city, possibly the capital of Alasiya. Enkomi is under the ''de facto'' control of Northern Cyprus.
In 1974, Enkomi had about ...
, two major
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
centres of the 13th-12th c. BC, the period known as
Late Cypriot IIC and IIIA.
The site was explored by
Porphyrios Dikaios
Porphyrios Dikaios (Greek: Πορφύριος Δίκαιος) FSA (16 August 190423 August 1971) was a Greek Cypriot archaeologist born in Nicosia
Nicosia ( ; el, Λευκωσία, Lefkosía ; tr, Lefkoşa ; hy, Նիկոսիա, romani ...
in 1952, by
Vassos Karageorghis
Vassos Karageorghis (Greek: Βάσος Καραγιώργης) FBA (29 April 1929 – 21 December 2021) was a Cypriot archaeologist and director of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus.
Biography
He attended the Pancyprian Gymnasium, he studied ...
in 1981-1982 and, more recently, in 2010–2013, by
Vassos Karageorghis
Vassos Karageorghis (Greek: Βάσος Καραγιώργης) FBA (29 April 1929 – 21 December 2021) was a Cypriot archaeologist and director of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus.
Biography
He attended the Pancyprian Gymnasium, he studied ...
and
Athanasia Kanta
''Athanasia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the daisy family.
; Species
''Athanasia'' is native to southern Africa. The name is derived from the Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in South ...
. Since 2014, the excavation is a joint venture between
Joachim Bretschneider (
Ghent University
Ghent University ( nl, Universiteit Gent, abbreviated as UGent) is a public research university located in Ghent, Belgium.
Established before the state of Belgium itself, the university was founded by the Dutch King William I in 1817, when the ...
),
Jan Driessen
Jan, JaN or JAN may refer to:
Acronyms
* Jackson, Mississippi (Amtrak station), US, Amtrak station code JAN
* Jackson-Evers International Airport, Mississippi, US, IATA code
* Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN), a Syrian militant group
* Japanese Article Numb ...
(
UCLouvain) and Athanasia Kanta (
Mediterranean Archaeological Society
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the eas ...
).
Based on the different explorations, it can be assumed that the entire plateau of c. seven
hectare
The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is a ...
s was densely occupied. Most telling is the excavation of part of a regularly laid-out settlement in the eastern and north-western sector of which the outer perimeter ‘casemate’ wall is assumed to have encircled the entire hill top plateau. The repetition of residential units within the excavated sectors appears to suggest that the establishment of the settlement was a deliberate and planned enterprise. Moreover, the discovery of
material culture
Material culture is the aspect of social reality grounded in the objects and architecture that surround people. It includes the usage, consumption, creation, and trade of objects as well as the behaviors, norms, and rituals that the objects creat ...
, including several hidden hoards of precious metals, seems to indicate the planned and organized abandonment of the settlement; since the inhabitants never retrieved these hoards, it is believed they were killed or enslaved. Former excavations have yielded two tablets inscribed in
Cypro-Minoan
The Cypro-Minoan syllabary (CM) is an undeciphered syllabary used on the island of Cyprus during the late Bronze Age (c. 1550–1050 BC). The term "Cypro-Minoan" was coined by Arthur Evans in 1909 based on its visual similarity to Linear A on M ...
and have confirmed the international character of its material culture, such as
Minoan
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, whose earliest beginnings were from 3500BC, with the complex urban civilization beginning around 2000BC, and then declining from 1450B ...
,
Canaan
Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...
ite,
Mycenaean,
Sardinian,
Hittite and
Cypriot
Cypriot (in older sources often "Cypriote") refers to someone or something of, from, or related to the country of Cyprus.
* Cypriot people, or of Cypriot descent; this includes:
**Armenian Cypriots
**Greek Cypriots
**Maronite Cypriots
**Turkish C ...
ceramics. The project aims to get a better understanding of the multicultural character of the site, especially against the background of the continuing discussion on migration, interaction and acculturation, which typifies the late 13th and early 12th c. BC in the
Eastern Mediterranean
Eastern Mediterranean is a loose definition of the eastern approximate half, or third, of the Mediterranean Sea, often defined as the countries around the Levantine Sea.
It typically embraces all of that sea's coastal zones, referring to communi ...
.
Pyla-Kokkinokremos was established at a time when the
Late Bronze Age collapse
The Late Bronze Age collapse was a time of widespread societal collapse during the 12th century BC, between c. 1200 and 1150. The collapse affected a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean (North Africa and Southeast Europe) and the Near East ...
reached its zenith, just a few decades prior to its eventual seemingly premeditated abandonment. Since the settlement was never reoccupied and has a lifespan of less than fifty years, Pyla becomes a very valuable ‘time capsule’ of the
LC IIC-IIIA critical phase. Owing to these facts together with its ethnically amalgamated material, the archaeological data from Pyla-Kokkinokremos surface as an exceptional opportunity to address the Late Bronze Age collapse and international contacts in the
Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
ine and Eastern Mediterranean world.
References
Bibliography
*Bretschneider J./ Driessen J. / Kanta A., 2021: Cyprus and Ugarit at the end of the Late Bronze Age: Insights from Pyla-Kokkinokremos, in: Série Ras Shamra-Ougarit 28,607-638.
*Bretschneider J./ Kanta A./ Driessen J., 2018:Pyla-Kokkinokremos (Cyprus) : Preliminary report on the 2015-2016 Campaigns, in: Ugarit-Forschungen. Internationales Jahrbuch für die Altertumskunde Syriens-Palästinas 48, p. 39-120.
*Bretschneider J./ Kanta A./ Driessen J., 2015: Pyla-Kokkinokremos. Preliminary Report on the 2014 Excavations, in: Ugarit-Forschungen. Internationales Jahrbuch für die Altertumskunde Syriens-Palästinas 46, p. 1-37.
*Karagheorghis, V. / Kanta, A., 2014: Pyla-Kokkinokremos: A late 13th-century B.C. fortified settlement in Cyprus. Excavations 2010–2011. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 141. Uppsala: Åströms Förlag.
*Karagheorghis, V. / Demas M., 1984: Pyla-Kokkinokremos. A late 13th-century B.C. fortified settlement in Cyprus. Nicosia: Department of Antiquities, Cyprus
*Kaniewski D./ Marriner N./ Bretschneider J./ Jans G./ Morhange Ch./ Cheddadi R./ Otto Th./ Luce F./ Van Campo E., 2019: 300-year drought frames Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age transition in the Near East. New palaeoecological data from Cyprus and Syria, in: Regional Environmental Change, 19(8). p.2287-2297.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pyla-Kokkinokremos
Bronze Age Cyprus
Cities in ancient Cyprus
Archaeological sites in Cyprus
Former populated places in Cyprus
Late Bronze Age collapse