Epochs
During the Bronze Age, Cyprus became one of the major hubs of the copper trade. We see connections with the Aegean, the Levant, Egypt and Ugarit, while new forms of settlement and writing reached the island together with traded goods.
2500–1050 BCE
Cypro-Minoan signs, an oxhide-shaped bronze ingot and the settlement of Maa–Palaeokastro provide a clear way to explain to children how metal, seafaring and writing transformed the ancient world.
Why could an island with copper deposits be more important than a vast territory without convenient harbours?
Mycenae · Ugarit · Egypt · the copper trade
The partly underground museum at Cape Maa tells the story of a Mycenaean settlement and displays unusual examples of early writing.
Cypro-Minoan writing is known from signs on clay, metal and other Late Bronze Age objects, but it has not been deciphered with certainty.
We include the museum as the link between Choirokoitia, Tenta, Kition and the Bronze Age settlement beside the salt lake.
We include the archaeological areas of Kition so that the city can be seen not only in a museum case but also within the modern urban fabric of Larnaca.
We distinguish the Bronze Age settlement from the much later Muslim shrine: entirely different periods share the same geographical setting.
We include Enkomi because it is difficult to understand Cyprus as a major centre of Late Bronze Age copper trade without it.
