The Bronze Age in Cyprus: three phases, three divisions

The frame

This page is a grouping for navigation, not a new historical division: it brings together the three Bronze Age phases of the chronological table of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus, the Early Bronze Age, 2500-2000 BCE, the Middle Bronze Age, 2000-1650 BCE, and the Late Bronze Age, 1650-1050 BCE. It adds no dates of its own. The Department of Antiquities pages cited here could not be opened for checking on 24 October 2026; the details from them follow notes taken from those pages at an earlier stage and were not re-checked. Source 1.

Boundaries and overlaps

The Met's timeline cuts the same centuries differently: Early Bronze Age about 2500-1900, Middle about 1900-1600 and Late about 1600-1050 BCE, so the inner boundaries shift by fifty to a hundred years. The Department of Antiquities page on the Paphos museum does not separate the Early from the Middle Bronze Age and presents them together, 2500-1650 BCE. At the end of the period, the Kathari temples at Kition cross 1050 BCE into the Geometric period. Sources 2, 3, 4, 5, 1.

On this site

The Early Bronze Age has one item, the article on Kissonerga-Skalia, which also appears in the Middle Bronze Age; the Early Bronze Age page sets out the gap. The Middle Bronze Age also holds the Cypriot jug with white-painted decoration. The Late Bronze Age has the bronze spearhead from Cyprus, the article on Maa-Palaeokastro, the article on Kition, which also appears in the Geometric period, and the article on the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Palaepaphos.