Understanding Ancient Cities: A View from Bronze Age Cyprus

Since the excavations of Ur, Nineveh and other famous urban centres of Mesopotamia in the 19th and early 20th centuries, archaeologists have been preoccupied with cities and have long seen urbanism as a defining feature of “civilization”. Archaeological approaches to ancient cities have changed significantly over this span—from an emphasis on the economic functions of cities within regional settlement systems to recognition of cities as products and producers of social life.  Current archaeological work has done much to erase the perceived dichotomy between ancient and modern cities, demonstrating the potential for ancient cities to provide insights into long-term social, economic and ecological processes relevant to the cities in which we live today.  

After briefly considering these issues, this lecture presents the results of ongoing archaeological work on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus aimed at understanding the relationship between the emergence of its first cities and the profound socioeconomic changes that took place there during the Late Bronze Age (c. 1700–1200 BC). This work emphasizes place-making in these early urban landscapes and its role in shaping new patterns of social interaction and power relations.