DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4923#0002
THE ANTIQUITIES DISCOVERED IN CYPRUS BY
GENERAL DI CESNOLA.
The accompanying photographs represent a small selection from
among the ancient objects of art and implements, nearly ten thou-
sand in number, discovered in the course of recent excavations
in the island of Cyprus by General Luigi Palma di Cesnola,
U.S. Consul at Larnaka, and purchased for the sum of £10,000
by the trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Xew York.
The island of Cyprus is one of those points which stand marked
in the map of the world as an ancient focus or radiating point of
civilization. A key to much of the history of the origins and early
development of Greek civilization, Greek forms of worship and
of art, is the history of the early movements and contact of
races along the coasts and in the coastward islands of the
Mediterranean. The contact of Hellenic settlements with
Semitic settlements along those coasts and in those islands,
and the relations of the two with primitive populations—these
constitute for the historical scholar a set of problems the most
fascinating and the most difficult. Upon these the attention of
much of the best modem scholarship has fixed itself, illuminating
them bit by bit with results laboriously obtained, and in need
of perpetual revision. But there has been one thing always
obvious—that for the study of the primitive intercommunication
between Greek and Asiatic, Cyprus is the centre of the position.
There were other important seats of early intercommunication
—there was Crete, there was Rhodes, there was Cos, there
was Tarsus, there was Thera, there was Cythera, at which
the Phoenicians, busy carriers as they were, would have brought
their own civilization, and that of the great continental empires
with which they traded, into contact with the receptive faculties
of men of the Hellenic race. There were all the harbour towns
of the Hellenic world proper, to which the Phoenicians pushed
their coasting enterprise. But Cyprus, the rich island lying not
far south of the coast of Cilicia, and not far west of the coast of
Syria—within sight of Libanus in clear weather, and within a
day's sail of Tyre—would be the main central meeting-point of
races. There the Phoenician traders from Sidon and Tyre would
early beach their galleys; there they would set out their wares
for sale; there they would colonize and establish a starting-
point for more adventurous voyages yet. Thither they would
import their gods, their arts, their fashions, and presently those
also of the other great sources and destinations of their com-
merce, the mainland empires of Egypt and Assyria. And so,
in truth, we have a hundred witnesses to the fact of Cyprus
being largely and early Phcenicianized. The period of the first
landings of Phoenicians in Cyprus (the name of which is pro-
bably identical with the Caplitor of the Old Testament and the
Kefa of the Egyptian hieroglyphics) cannot be even approxi-
mately ascertained. But all tradition agrees that they were the
first to clear the island of the forests with which it was covered,
and to turn to account the mines of copper and ample other natural
riches with which it abounded. Hiram, who was king of Tyre
in the time of Solomon, received tribute from the Tyrian colony
of Citium, the modem Larnaka, on the southern coast of Cyprus.
We know from Josephus and other sources that this town of
Citium was the oldest of the Phoenician colonies in the island.
And the inhabitants of Citium, according to the general opinion of
scholars, are to be recognized in the Kiffhit, mentioned in Genesis,
and elsewhere in the Old Testament, as among the leading
Mediterranean populations. The two other principal Phoenician
colonies were Paphos and Amathus. Citium continued to be
their most important commercial station (yur6puw); but Paphos,
from being presently the great seat of the worship of Aphrodite,
came to be the religious capital of the island (which was
especially sacred to that goddess), and indeed one of the most
important religious centres of all the ancient world. The Paphian
Aphrodite, as she was known in classical times, was a deity
whose attributes and rites were compounded of elements partly
Phcenician and Babylonian, partly it is probable Phrygian,
and partly Greek. The introduction of her worship into
Cyprus is associated, in the first instance, with the mythical
name of Cinyras. Cinyras is said to have been the founder of
Paphos ; and generally his name stands as an embodiment of the
Phoenician immigration, and the civilization which followed in
its train. He is the great and patron hero of the island. The
ruling family of Paphos, in whom the functions of priests and
kings were united, were called the Cinyradpe, as being his sup-
posed descendants ; and in the course of time, and the progress
of mythology, the discovery of copper-working, and of all the
other industries of the island, comes to he attributed to this
single personality of Cinyras.
The Phcenician immigration, then, with its mythic leader Ciny-
ras, had found the island in possession of a primitive race, if not
of more primitive races than one, whom scholars have supposed
akin to those half barbaric offshoots of the Hellenic stock
inhabiting districts of Asia Minor near the island, the Lycian
and Phrygian. That supposition seems to be strengthened
by recent linguistic researches. The Phoenicians, it presently
appeared, were not destined to remain sole settlers among
this population, nor sole masters of the seabord of Cyprus.
At the time which we are accustomed to speak of as that
of the Trojan war—that is, at the time when emigrants of
the Dorian and Ionian families sailed eastward from the main-
land of Greece, and fought for ground to settle on up and down
the coasts of Asia Minor—at this time, certain of such emigrants
found their way further south and further east than Asia Minor,
and landed at various points upon the coast of Cyprus. That is
what we must understand when we hear from Homer, and other
writers, how various heroes of the Trojan war visited Cyprus or
brought settlers there after the fall of Troy. Thus Teucer is said
to have brought settlers to Cyprus from Salamis, Akamas from
Athens, Praxander from Laceduunon, and other leaders from
Argolis and Achaia. Certain it is that the Greek settlements
in Cyprus at this uncertain time—the heroic period—were
very numerous, especially on the northern and eastern coasts
of the island, and that the most important of them was Salamis
near the modern Famagusta. Salamis was so called probably in
remembrance of the island off Attica, from which the colonists
had started; and was associated with the name of Teucer as its
founder. The Phi enicians, who cared less for political power than
for commercial opportunities, do not seem to have opposed
these Greek settlements in any way. From the date when the
settlements took place, there continued to exist in the island
two ruling races—one the Phoenician, and the other the Greek.
They were centred in different cities, but exercised a consider-
able modifying influence on each other, even if they did not
actually mix. The Greeks in Cyprus became less Greek than
they continued to be in most of their colonies. They absorbed
new elements, and radiated new ideas. They took up the re-
ligious ideas of their neighbours, or adapted to them those
primitive ones which they had brought from Greece. And
thus arose that famous mixed worship of Aphrodite with
GENERAL DI CESNOLA.
The accompanying photographs represent a small selection from
among the ancient objects of art and implements, nearly ten thou-
sand in number, discovered in the course of recent excavations
in the island of Cyprus by General Luigi Palma di Cesnola,
U.S. Consul at Larnaka, and purchased for the sum of £10,000
by the trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Xew York.
The island of Cyprus is one of those points which stand marked
in the map of the world as an ancient focus or radiating point of
civilization. A key to much of the history of the origins and early
development of Greek civilization, Greek forms of worship and
of art, is the history of the early movements and contact of
races along the coasts and in the coastward islands of the
Mediterranean. The contact of Hellenic settlements with
Semitic settlements along those coasts and in those islands,
and the relations of the two with primitive populations—these
constitute for the historical scholar a set of problems the most
fascinating and the most difficult. Upon these the attention of
much of the best modem scholarship has fixed itself, illuminating
them bit by bit with results laboriously obtained, and in need
of perpetual revision. But there has been one thing always
obvious—that for the study of the primitive intercommunication
between Greek and Asiatic, Cyprus is the centre of the position.
There were other important seats of early intercommunication
—there was Crete, there was Rhodes, there was Cos, there
was Tarsus, there was Thera, there was Cythera, at which
the Phoenicians, busy carriers as they were, would have brought
their own civilization, and that of the great continental empires
with which they traded, into contact with the receptive faculties
of men of the Hellenic race. There were all the harbour towns
of the Hellenic world proper, to which the Phoenicians pushed
their coasting enterprise. But Cyprus, the rich island lying not
far south of the coast of Cilicia, and not far west of the coast of
Syria—within sight of Libanus in clear weather, and within a
day's sail of Tyre—would be the main central meeting-point of
races. There the Phoenician traders from Sidon and Tyre would
early beach their galleys; there they would set out their wares
for sale; there they would colonize and establish a starting-
point for more adventurous voyages yet. Thither they would
import their gods, their arts, their fashions, and presently those
also of the other great sources and destinations of their com-
merce, the mainland empires of Egypt and Assyria. And so,
in truth, we have a hundred witnesses to the fact of Cyprus
being largely and early Phcenicianized. The period of the first
landings of Phoenicians in Cyprus (the name of which is pro-
bably identical with the Caplitor of the Old Testament and the
Kefa of the Egyptian hieroglyphics) cannot be even approxi-
mately ascertained. But all tradition agrees that they were the
first to clear the island of the forests with which it was covered,
and to turn to account the mines of copper and ample other natural
riches with which it abounded. Hiram, who was king of Tyre
in the time of Solomon, received tribute from the Tyrian colony
of Citium, the modem Larnaka, on the southern coast of Cyprus.
We know from Josephus and other sources that this town of
Citium was the oldest of the Phoenician colonies in the island.
And the inhabitants of Citium, according to the general opinion of
scholars, are to be recognized in the Kiffhit, mentioned in Genesis,
and elsewhere in the Old Testament, as among the leading
Mediterranean populations. The two other principal Phoenician
colonies were Paphos and Amathus. Citium continued to be
their most important commercial station (yur6puw); but Paphos,
from being presently the great seat of the worship of Aphrodite,
came to be the religious capital of the island (which was
especially sacred to that goddess), and indeed one of the most
important religious centres of all the ancient world. The Paphian
Aphrodite, as she was known in classical times, was a deity
whose attributes and rites were compounded of elements partly
Phcenician and Babylonian, partly it is probable Phrygian,
and partly Greek. The introduction of her worship into
Cyprus is associated, in the first instance, with the mythical
name of Cinyras. Cinyras is said to have been the founder of
Paphos ; and generally his name stands as an embodiment of the
Phoenician immigration, and the civilization which followed in
its train. He is the great and patron hero of the island. The
ruling family of Paphos, in whom the functions of priests and
kings were united, were called the Cinyradpe, as being his sup-
posed descendants ; and in the course of time, and the progress
of mythology, the discovery of copper-working, and of all the
other industries of the island, comes to he attributed to this
single personality of Cinyras.
The Phcenician immigration, then, with its mythic leader Ciny-
ras, had found the island in possession of a primitive race, if not
of more primitive races than one, whom scholars have supposed
akin to those half barbaric offshoots of the Hellenic stock
inhabiting districts of Asia Minor near the island, the Lycian
and Phrygian. That supposition seems to be strengthened
by recent linguistic researches. The Phoenicians, it presently
appeared, were not destined to remain sole settlers among
this population, nor sole masters of the seabord of Cyprus.
At the time which we are accustomed to speak of as that
of the Trojan war—that is, at the time when emigrants of
the Dorian and Ionian families sailed eastward from the main-
land of Greece, and fought for ground to settle on up and down
the coasts of Asia Minor—at this time, certain of such emigrants
found their way further south and further east than Asia Minor,
and landed at various points upon the coast of Cyprus. That is
what we must understand when we hear from Homer, and other
writers, how various heroes of the Trojan war visited Cyprus or
brought settlers there after the fall of Troy. Thus Teucer is said
to have brought settlers to Cyprus from Salamis, Akamas from
Athens, Praxander from Laceduunon, and other leaders from
Argolis and Achaia. Certain it is that the Greek settlements
in Cyprus at this uncertain time—the heroic period—were
very numerous, especially on the northern and eastern coasts
of the island, and that the most important of them was Salamis
near the modern Famagusta. Salamis was so called probably in
remembrance of the island off Attica, from which the colonists
had started; and was associated with the name of Teucer as its
founder. The Phi enicians, who cared less for political power than
for commercial opportunities, do not seem to have opposed
these Greek settlements in any way. From the date when the
settlements took place, there continued to exist in the island
two ruling races—one the Phoenician, and the other the Greek.
They were centred in different cities, but exercised a consider-
able modifying influence on each other, even if they did not
actually mix. The Greeks in Cyprus became less Greek than
they continued to be in most of their colonies. They absorbed
new elements, and radiated new ideas. They took up the re-
ligious ideas of their neighbours, or adapted to them those
primitive ones which they had brought from Greece. And
thus arose that famous mixed worship of Aphrodite with