Its most famous, and probably only known, resident was Zeno of Kition, born c. 334 BC in Kition and founder of the Stoic school of philosophy which he taught in Athens from about 300 BC.
Name
The name of the city comes from the Phoenician𐤊𐤕𐤉 (KTY, pronounced Kitiya).[9] This name was borrowed into Ancient Greek as Kítion (Κίτιον) and thence into Latin as Citium.[10][bettersourceneeded]
History
During the Late Bronze Age, the area was settled by Mycenaean Greeks who exploited the local copper deposits. This settlement was destroyed around 1200 BC but rebuilt soon after.[11]
Faience rhyton with enamel inlay, 13th c. BC, Nicosia museum
The new town was rebuilt on a larger scale; its mudbrick city wall was replaced by a cyclopean wall.[12] Around 1000 BC, the religious part of the city was abandoned, although life seems to have continued in other areas as indicated by finds in tombs.[13]
Literary evidence suggests an early Phoenician presence also at Kition which was under Tyrian rule at the beginning of the 10th century BC.[14] Some Phoenicianmerchants who were believed to come from Tyrecolonized the area and expanded the political influence of Kition. After c. 850 BC, the city's sanctuaries were rebuilt and reused by Phoenician settlers.[15]
The kingdom was under Egyptian domination from 570 to 545 BC. Persia ruled Cyprus from 545 BC. Kings of the city are referred to by name from 500 BC—in Phoenician texts and as inscriptions on coins.[16]
Marguerite Yon claims that literary texts and inscriptions suggest that by the Classical period Kition was one of the principal local powers, along with its neighbour Salamis.[16] In 499 BC Cypriot kingdoms (including Kition) joined Ionia's revolt against Persia.[17]
Persian rule of Cyprus ended in 332 BC.
Ptolemy I conquered Cyprus in 312 BC and killed Poumyathon, the Phoenician king of Kition, and burned the temples.[18] Shortly afterwards the Cypriot city-kingdoms were dissolved and the Phoenician dynasty of Kition was abolished. Following these events the area lost its religious character.[19]
However, a trading colony from Kition established at Piraeus had prospered to the point that, in 233 BC they requested and received permission for the construction of a temple dedicated to Astarte".[20]
Strong[1] earthquakes hit the city in 76 AD and the year after, but the city seems to have been prosperous during Roman times. A curator civitatis, or financial administrator of the city, was sent to Kition from Rome during the rule of Septimius Severus.[21]
The city was destroyed by successive earthquakes in 322 and 342 AD, which also destroyed Salamis and Pafos.[1]
Kition. The cult room. Statues in situ. Some depict Herakles-Melqart and are probably from the Sub Archaic Style - Early Cypro-Classical I, ca 480-450 B.C.
The ruins can be found within the borders of the modern town of Larnaca. The ancient city was surrounded by massive walls which can still be traced today. At the Bamboula hill, in the northeastern part of the city, was the acropolis. Here, the Swedish archaeologists discovered a sanctuary dedicated to Heracles-Melqart. Between the acropolis and the modern seashore was the ancient harbour. In 1879 the Government of Cyprus filled this marshy area with soil from the upper strata of the Bamboula Hill because they wished to get rid of the malaria mosquitos. Because of this the Bamboula Hill and especially the upper layers of the acropolis were much disturbed. A small part of the city was excavated as early as 1894 by british archeologists.[23]
The Swedish archaeologists attempted a stratigraphic examination of the Bamboula mound to obtain information about the dating of the Phoenician colonization of Cyprus. They wanted to study the ceramic development and collect archaeological material to elucidate how the Phoenicians affected the development of the Cypriote culture. But, after three days of digging, they found a large deposit of sculptures and needed to subsequently enlarge the excavation.[23]
The excavation of Kition. The rectangular base of a statue, the statue itself is missing.
According to The Swedish Cyprus Expedition, the acropolis commenced as a settlement from the end of the Late Cypriote II and the beginning of Cypro Geometric I period before it became a sanctuary. Throughout the time of the Cypro-Archaic I something changed, and Kition began to be used as an open-air sanctuary. The Swedish Expedition did not find any votive sculptures from this early stage, therefore the votives might have been of a different kind or removed to a place outside the excavation. They did find a rectangular base of a statue called no. 560. The statue itself was missing with only the feet preserved. This sculpture was probably very big and could have been Kition’s cult statue. Later, the cult erected a rectangular altar made of rubble and chips of stone in front of the statue.[23]
Herakles or Herakles Melqart statue standing on a rectangular base with legs and head shown in profile, torso en face. Nude except for lionskin with paws knotted on the chest. Head of lionskin with teeth resting on Herakles’ head which has notched hair over forehead. Left arm raised with fist attached to the back of the head (formerly holding a club, now missing). Almond-shaped eyes and a faint smile. The back is roughly worked. From Kition. Can be seen at Medelhavsmuseet.
The temenos were in use until the end of the Cypro-Archaic II period when a new temenos was built on top of the old one. This temenos was enclosed by a massive peribolos wall. Furthermore, it seems like an inner temenos was created at the same place as the earlier walls had been. Within the inner temenos a low altar consisting of a square was found, as well as another pillar altar outside. Both on the altar itself and close to it the archaeologists found remains of ash and carbonized matter. All through the periods votive gifts, mainly consisting of sculptures, were placed in the sanctuary, and each time the level was raised the sculptures were transferred to the new sanctuary. Throughout the Cypro-Classic I period, the temenos were rearranged entirely and became more monumental. This sanctuary was the last one before the sanctuary was demolished in the Hellenistic period and secular buildings were erected in the same place. During the demolition, all the votive sculptures were buried, and the place was no longer used for sacred purposes. The Hellenistic house was divided into two parts and inside archaeologists found remains of a basalt press for pressing wine or oil, as well as rectangular drainage outlets and a storage vessel.[23]
During the excavation, they found no inscriptions that could inform us to whom this sanctuary was dedicated, although some of the sculptures might represent the god and thence give us an answer. Most of the sculptures dressed in lion’s skin and a club in the right hand, are a Cypriot variety of the Greek Heracles, which the Phoenicians identified with their god Melqart, the patron god of Kition. Therefore, the archaeologists concluded that the sanctuary was dedicated to the city god of Kition, Heracles-Melqart.[24]
Einar Gjerstad explains the reason why the temenos were never rebuilt as a consequence of the last king of Kition, Pumiatihon. Pumiatihon sided with Antigonus in the struggle between him and Ptolemy I Soter. He lost his life and throne which meant that Kition ceased to be an independent state after Ptolemy’s conquest of Kition in 312 B.C. and since the temple was the religious sign of the political independence of Kition it couldn't be rebuilt after the conquest.[23]
Archaeology is continuing near the Kathari site. A magnificent 20m-long Roman mosaic showing the labours of Hercules was discovered in a baths building in 2016.[25] It was found under Kyriakou Matsi Street when clearing a sewer and is expected to be transferred to the museum.[26]
The Kathari site (a.k.a. Area II)
Large Temple, Kathari, Kition
This site is located around 500 metres north of the Bamboula site and sometimes referred to as "Kition Area II".[27] The Department of Antiquities (under the direction of Vassos Karageorghis) started excavating in 1959[28] continuing until 1981.[29]
Excavations have revealed part of a defensive wall, dating from the 13th century BC[30] and remains of five temples including cyclopean walls. The largest temple's (horizontal) dimensions were 35 m by 22 m.[31] and was built using ashlar blocks. Temple (2) was rebuilt—around 1200 BC.[18] Temple (1) has Late Bronze Agegraffiti of ships on the façade of the south wall.[18]
The Bamboula site
Phoenician shipyard, Bamboula, Kition
The site is located around 50 metres north of the Larnaca Museum. In 1845 the Sargon Stele was found here, together with a gilded silver plakette now in the Louvre.
A British Expedition first excavated the site in 1913.
A French team from the University of Lyon[22] started excavating in 1976.[32][33] when traces of settlement dating to the tenth century BC were found along ramparts next to the port at Bamboula.[16] The site also consists of a sanctuary of Astarte and a sanctuary of Melkart.[22] The earliest sanctuary was built in the 9th century BC.[34]
1987[35] saw the discovery of the Phoenician harbour for warships built in the 5th century BC. In its final stage, it consisted of ship sheds (six of them have been recorded), 6 metres wide and about 38 to 39 meters long, with shipways on which triremes were pulled up to dry under tiled roofs[34]
Other archaeological sites at Kition
Zeus Keraunios, 500-480 BC, Nicosia museumThe Sargon Stele
Five built tombs, or hypogea, have been discovered at Kition: the Vangelis Tomb, Godham's Tomb, the Phaneromeni, and the Turabi Tekke Tomb.[36] Two important stele with inscriptions in the Phoenician script were found in the Turabi Tekke cemetery in the late nineteenth century. They are now in the British Museum's collection.[37]
Kition Area I, "close to the west [city] wall of the Pre-Phoenician period, seems to have been a residential area" according to architectural and moveable finds.[21] "Kition Area III" and "-IV" are names of other archaeological sites at Kition.[27]
Amathus or Amathous was an ancient city and one of the ancient royal cities of Cyprus until about 300 BC. Some of its remains can be seen today on the southern coast in front of Agios Tychonas, about 24 miles (39 km) west of Larnaca and 6 miles (9.7 km) east of Limassol. Its ancient cult sanctuary of Aphrodite was the second most important in Cyprus, her homeland, after Paphos.
Human habitation of Cyprus dates back to the Paleolithic era. Cyprus's geographic position has caused the island to be influenced by differing Eastern Mediterranean civilisations over the millennia.
Salamis was an ancient Greek city-state on the east coast of Cyprus, at the mouth of the river Pedieos, 6 km north of modern Famagusta. According to tradition, the founder of Salamis was Teucer, son of Telamon, king of the Greek island of Salamis, who could not return home after the Trojan War because he had failed to avenge his brother Ajax.
Larnaca is a city on the south east coast of Cyprus and the capital of the district of the same name. It is the third-largest city in the country, after Nicosia and Limassol, with a district population of 144,200 in 2015.
The ancient history of Cyprus shows a precocious sophistication in the Neolithic era visible in settlements such as at Choirokoitia dating from the 9th millennium BC, and at Kalavassos from about 7500 BC.
Idalion or Idalium was an ancient city in Cyprus, in modern Dali, Nicosia District. The city was founded on the copper trade in the 3rd millennium BC. Its name does not appear, however, on the renowned "Kition Stele", i.e., the Sargon Stele of 707 BC, but a little later on the Prism of Esarhaddon known as Niniveh A wherein the name is prefixed by the modifier URU (city) as URU.e-di-ʾi-il and in similar spellings in Ashurbanipal's annal while modified by KUR (land/kingdom).
Kourion was an important ancient Greek city-state on the southwestern coast of the island of Cyprus. In the twelfth century BCE, after the collapse of the Mycenaean palaces, Greek settlers from Argos arrived on this site.
The Cypro-Minoan syllabary (CM), more commonly called the Cypro-Minoan Script, is an undeciphered syllabary used on the island of Cyprus and at its trading partners during the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age. The term "Cypro-Minoan" was coined by Arthur Evans in 1909 based on its visual similarity to Linear A on Minoan Crete, from which CM is thought to be derived. Approximately 250 objects—such as clay balls, cylinders, and tablets which bear Cypro-Minoan inscriptions, have been found. Discoveries have been made at various sites around Cyprus, as well as in the ancient city of Ugarit on the Syrian coast. It is thought to be somehow related to the later Cypriot syllabary.
The Swedish Cyprus Expedition was assembled to systematically investigate Cyprus’s early archaeological history. The expedition occurred between September 1927 and March 1931 and was led by the three archaeologists Einar Gjerstad, Erik Sjöqvist and Alfred Westholm together with the architect John Lindros who photographed during their time in Cyprus. The excavation constitutes the foundation of modern archaeology in Cyprus. The results of the excavations revealed that the distinctive culture of early Cyprus had been created in close contact with various cultures from the Middle East and the western Mediterranean areas.
Agia Eirini or Agia Irini is a village located on Morphou Bay, approximately 10 km north of Morphou. The village is located within Kyrenia District. It is under the de facto control of Northern Cyprus.
Larnaca District Museum is a museum in Larnaca, Cyprus that has displays that show the "historical development of the city of Kition and the District of Larnaka in general." It was inaugurated in 1969. and was formerly named Larnaca District Archaeological Museum. It is controlled by the Department of Antiquities.
The Sargon Stele was found in the autumn of 1845 in Cyprus on the site of the former city-kingdom of Kition, in present-day Larnaca to the west of the old harbour of Kition on the archaeological site of Bamboula. The language on the stele is Assyrian Akkadian.
The Mnemata Site is an archaeological excavation site at the Mnemata locality of Larnaca, Cyprus. A tomb was discovered in 1979—during the construction of a refugee settlement.
The pottery of ancient Cyprus starts during the Neolithic period. Throughout the ages, Cypriot ceramics demonstrate many connections with cultures from around the Mediterranean. During the Early and Middle Bronze Ages, it is especially imaginative in shape and decoration. There are also many early terracotta figurines that were produced depicting female figures.
The archaeology of Cyprus involves the analysis of human activity derived from Cypriot artefacts and architecture from the Neolithic through to the British period. The earliest archaeological discoveries in Cyprus are attributed to European amateur collectors or “treasure hunters” during the early 19th century. By the mid 19th century, systematic fieldwork and excavations were conducted on various sites involving studying the remains of Cypriot cemeteries and tombs, maritime artefacts, architecture, pottery as well as a range of other individual artefacts. Subsequent findings and analysis detail the social and physical landscapes of ancient Cyprus as well as their evolving culture, religious beliefs and technology throughout antiquity.
The Kition Tariffs are two important Phoenician inscriptions found in Kition (Larnaka), Cyprus in 1879. The longer of the two has been described as "Among the longest and most important Phoenician inscriptions from Cyprus".
The Kition Necropolis Phoenician inscriptions are four Phoenician inscriptions discovered in the necropolis of Tourapi at Kition in 1894 by British archaeologist John Myres on behalf of the Cyprus Exploration Fund.
Mersinaki is an ancient place located near the shore, between Vouni and Soli, in Cyprus. The Swedish Cyprus Expedition, led by Einar Gjerstad, excavated Mersinaki during the year 1930 and found an open-air sanctuary by a river delta.
Pumayyaton and Pnytarion's inscriptions are two separated inscriptions, Phoenician and Greek, engraved on the same marble base which was found in Gdhi or Gai locality near Dromolaxia. About 3 hundred years after the first inscription, the Phoenician, was engraved, the base was turned upside down and the second inscription, in Greek, was engraved; the inscriptions have no connection and are not a bilingual inscription. Eventually, it was used as a press. It is now exhibited in Larnaca District Archaeological Museum.
Marguerite Yon, or Marguerite Yon-Calvet, née Calvet, is a French archaeologist and historian, specializing in the ancient Near East, particularly Ugarit in Syria. She is widely recognized for her archaeological work on Ugarit, where she conducted excavations for twenty years. She has extensively excavated the island of Cyprus. Notably, she held the distinction of being the first female president of the Academy of Lyon since its foundation.
References
Citations
1 2 3 4 Flourentzos, Paulos (1996). A Guide to the Larnaca District Museum. Nicosia: Ministry of Communications and Works - Department of Antiquities. p.18. ISBN978-9963-36-425-1. OCLC489834719.
↑ Excerpt of wall mounted text in exhibit room number two at Larnaca District Museum.
↑ Flourentzos, Paulos (1996). A Guide to the Larnaca District Museum. Nicosia: Ministry of Communications and Works - Department of Antiquities. p.6. ISBN978-9963-36-425-1. OCLC489834719.
↑ Excerpt of text on the only plaque at the Kathari site (as of 2013).
1 2 3 Yon, Marguerite; William A. P. (Nov 1997). "Kition in the Tenth to Fourth Centuries B. C.". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 308 (308): 9–17. doi:10.2307/1357405. JSTOR1357405. S2CID156694103.
↑ Flourentzos, Paulos (1996). A Guide to the Larnaca District Museum. Nicosia: Ministry of Communications and Works - Department of Antiquities. p.15. ISBN978-9963-36-425-1. OCLC489834719.
1 2 3 Flourentzos, Paulos (1996). A Guide to the Larnaca District Museum. Nicosia: Ministry of Communications and Works - Department of Antiquities. p.5. ISBN978-9963-36-425-1. OCLC489834719.
1 2 3 "Kition" (in Greek). Mcw.gov.cy. Retrieved 2014-04-25.
1 2 3 4 5 Gjerstad, Einar (1937). The Swedish Cyprus Expedition: Finds and Results of the Excavations in Cyprus 1927-1931, Vol. III Text. Stockholm: Victor Pettersons Bokindustriaktiebolag. pp.1, 74–75, 21, 23–26, 74–75, 76–79, 82–84, 85, 93–97, 111–112, 238, 154–155, 17–174, 210, 225–228, 270–277, 264–265, 398, 340–345, 388, 394–396, 380–383, 398, 399–403, 404–405, 407, 416–419, 533–544, 582, 563–565. ISBN978-9333341769.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
↑ Karageorghis, Vassos (2003). The Cyprus Collections in the Medelhavsmuseet. Stockholm: A.G Leventis Foundation and Medelhavsmuseet. pp.ix, 4–5, 11, 13, 16, 17. ISBN9789963560554.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
↑ According to the text on the plaque closest to the excavation pit of the Kathari site (as of 2013).
↑ Excerpt of text on the only plaque at the Kathari site (as of 2013).
↑ Excerpt of wall mounted text in exhibit room number 2 at Larnaca District Museum.
↑ Yon, Marguerite; William A. P. (Nov 1997). "Kition in the Tenth to Fourth Centuries B. C.". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 308 (308): 9–17. doi:10.2307/1357405. JSTOR1357405. S2CID156694103.
Salles, Jean-François (1993). Kition-Bamboula IV: Les niveaux hellénistiques. Paris: Éd. Recherche sur les Civilisations. ISBN9782865382408.
Calvet, Yves (1982). Kition-Bamboula V: Kition dans les textes. Testimonia littéraires et épigraphiques et Corpus des inscriptions. Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les civilisations. ISBN2865380297.
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