Lindy Crewe

Early Enkomi: Regionalism, Trade and Society at the Beginning of the Late Bronze Age on Cyprus (British Archaeological Reports British Series) Lindy Crewe

Central to any study of Cypriot prehistory is the coastal settlement of Enkomi, often considered to be the first state-like entity on the island and identified with the Alashiya of contemporary textual evidence. The main goal of this volume is to examine the archaeological evidence for the beginnings of the transformation of Cypriot society as it stands, to seek to understand the individual aspects of the process and to separate this from the later LCIIC outcomes. The author utilises the Enkomi pottery assemblage to examine the introduction of wheelmade pottery and thereby investigate the processes through which Cypriot society became highly complex, including whether the evidence points to early centralized control or independent regional developments. However, in order to understand the pottery, it was necessary to investigate all types of archaeological evidence pertaining to the early history of the site and this volume also includes discussion of architecture, tombs and other aspects of material culture.