The Late Bronze Age in Cyprus: a boundary crossed

The frame

The chronological table of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus dates the Late Bronze Age to 1650-1050 BCE, for the whole island, and the site adopts it as its frame for Cyprus. 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, read on 24 October 2026, gives Cyprus a "Late Bronze Age" of about 1600-1050 BCE: the start is fifty years later than the table's, and the end is the same. The Department of Antiquities page on Kition dates the temples and workshops at Kathari from the end of the 13th to the end of the 11th century BCE, so that phase crosses 1050 BCE into the Geometric period and is not shortened. The dates of Maa-Palaeokastro, around 1200, 1175 and 1150 BCE, all fall inside the period. Sources 2, 3, 4, 1.

On this site

The period has four items. The bronze spearhead from Cyprus is dated by the museum "ca. 1200-1100 BCE", "Probably Late Cypriot IIIA", with no findspot. "Maa-Palaeokastro: destruction, rebuilding, abandonment" presents a site that the Department of Antiquities links to refugees from the Aegean, and its three dates. "Kition: from the Kathari temples to the temple of Astarte" also appears in the Geometric period, by two documented phases. "Palaepaphos: the sanctuary of Aphrodite from the 12th century BCE" appears here because, according to UNESCO, the Mycenaeans erected the temple in the 12th century BC, and it also appears on the group page "Cyprus from the Geometric to the Classical period". Sources 5, 6.