Iron Age

After the Bronze Age collapse Cyprus puts itself back together — not as one state but as a dozen. The island divides into city-kingdoms, each with its own king, coinage and sanctuary. That fragmentation lasts seven centuries and shapes everything that follows: Cyprus will always be tempting to its larger neighbours and too divided to resist them.

Who ruled

Salamis becomes the strongest in the east, Palaipaphos holds the island’s chief sanctuary, Kourion and Amathous sit on the south coast, Soli and Marion on the north and west. Tamassos grows rich on copper mines; Idalion holds the centre of the island.

Some kingdoms cannot be seen at all today: Ledra lies under old Nicosia, Chytroi under Kythrea, Lapithos and ancient Kerynia under the modern towns of the north coast. The full list is gathered under city-kingdoms.

At Kition Phoenicians settle firmly from the 9th century BC; the city becomes bilingual and stays that way for centuries.

Assyrians and Homeric burials

In 673 BC the Assyrian king Esarhaddon lists ten Cypriot kings paying him tribute on a clay prism. It is the first document to name the kingdoms one by one.

The royal tombs of Salamis date to roughly the same century. In the passageways before them excavators found chariots buried with their horses, bronze cauldrons and ivory-inlaid furniture — a funerary rite oddly close to the one described in Homer.

The sanctuaries that will outlast every change of ruler take shape now: Apollo Hylates near Kourion, Golgoi with its stone statuary, and rural Athienou-Malloura.

By the mid-6th century BC Cyprus submits to Egypt, and from 545 BC passes to Persia. The Classical period begins.