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PERIOD GUIDE · Cyprus

The Early Bronze Age in Cyprus: ending in 2000 or 1900 BCE

The Department of Antiquities' table dates the period to 2500-2000 BCE, the Met's timeline to about 2500-1900, and the Paphos museum page merges it with the Middle Bronze Age. On this site it has one item so far.

2500-2000 BCE
1 article or guide

Move through the periods

Its place in the Cyprus scheme

The whole scheme with this period marked; the periods before and after are its neighbours in the row. Boundaries follow the sources and are not to scale.

All periods and subdivisions
  1. The Neolithic in Cyprus10,000-3,900 BCE
  2. The Chalcolithic in Cyprus3,900-2,500 BCE
  3. The Bronze Age in Cyprus2,500-1,050 BCE
  4. Cyprus from the Geometric to the Classical period1,050-312 BCE
  5. The Hellenistic period in Cyprus312-58 BCE
  6. The Roman period in Cyprus58 BCE - 395 CE
  7. Early Christian and Byzantine Cyprus395-1,191 CE
  8. Frankish and Venetian Cyprus1,191-1,571 CE

The frame

The chronological table of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus dates the Early Bronze Age to 2500-2000 BCE, for the whole island, and the site adopts it as its frame for Cyprus. The Department of Antiquities pages and catalogue cited here could not be opened for checking on 24 October 2026; the details from them follow notes taken from them at an earlier stage and were not re-checked. Source 1.

Boundaries and overlaps

The Met's timeline, read on 24 October 2026, gives Cyprus an "Early Bronze Age" of about 2500-1900 BCE: the start is the same, and the end is about a century later than the end of the period in the table. The Department of Antiquities page on the Paphos museum merges the Early and Middle Bronze Age into one unit, 2500-1650 BCE, without separating them. The same page dates the "Pithos House" at Kissonerga-Mosphilia to "the end of the Chalcolithic (end of the 3rd millennium)": in numbers that is this period, but the museum calls it Chalcolithic, so the article on the house stays on the Chalcolithic page. Sources 2, 3, 1.

On this site

The period has one item: "Kissonerga-Skalia: the Early and Middle Bronze Age as one unit", which is also placed in the Middle Bronze Age because its source does not separate the periods. There is no museum object of the period on the site yet.

Gap: in the Department of Antiquities' site pages and its catalogue "Ancient Cyprus: Cultures in Dialogue", checked for this page, Kissonerga-Skalia is the only site with an Early Bronze Age date. The Met's timeline for 8000-2000 BCE, read on 24 October 2026, names no Cypriot site: the island appears in it only in the list of periods, the map note and the keywords. Missing: a second site with a phase dated explicitly to the Early Bronze Age, by name or by the years 2500-2000 BCE, on a site page or in an excavation report. Sources 1, 4, 2.

Source

Sources and further reading

The research and references behind this page. Rights to external content remain with their owners.

  1. 1 Chronological table of the history of Cyprus (Department of Antiquities, Cyprus)

    Department of Antiquities, Cyprus · Not opened for checking

  2. 2 The Eastern Mediterranean and Syria, 8000-2000 B.C.

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art · 2000 · Checked

  3. 3 Paphos museum, page of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus

    Department of Antiquities, Cyprus · Not opened for checking

  4. 4 Ancient Cyprus: Cultures in Dialogue (exhibition catalogue, PDF, Department of Antiquities, Cyprus)

    Department of Antiquities, Cyprus · Not opened for checking

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