Late Bronze Age Socio-Economic and Political Organization, and the Hellenization of Cyprus

Cultural and social interactions in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age involved trade, mercantile operations, migration, colonization and/or military engagement. The Mycenaean expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean found Cyprus occupying a strategic position in the sea routes between Greece and the Near East. The Mycenaeans as early as the fourteenth century BC began establishing entrepôt stations in Cyprus that facilitated their commercial interactions with the Near East. In the meantime, something equally important led them to pay more attention to the island, to gradually dominate over it, to achieve control over its territory, and to consequently Hellenize it. It was the fact that Cyprus was one of the most important copper sources in the Mediterranean. The discovery by the Mycenaeans that copper was readily available on the island, increased its importance considerably. A new type of economy and political organization emerged in Cyprus, based on the Mycenaean exploitation of copper. The new economic and political system caused an increase of settlements and population in the regions of copper exploitation, and it is reflected by the distribution of the settlements that aimed at serving the maximal exploitation of the copper sources for the benefit of the Mycenaeans. In other words, the distribution and organization of the settlement pattern during the Late Cypriot II and particularly in the Late Cypriot III periods reflect the complete economic and political control of and domination over Cyprus by the Mycenaeans.