Cypro-Phoenician figurines in Phoenicia: a reassessment

Abstract

In scientific literature, one often hears about Cypro-Phoenician material culture. This terminology can indicate both artefacts produced by Cypriot craftsmanship in the Levant or artefacts presenting stylistic characteristics halfway between two cultures. In the past, this term was also arbitrarily assigned to material categories based on early archaeological finds, namely creating fictitious cultural labels. The Cypro-Phoenician terracottas are a very small coroplastic group of Cypriot origin found in some locations along the Levantine coast between the Iron Age and the beginning of the Persian period. Indeed, in the Levant, during the 6th century BCE, one can notice the coexistence of two allochthonous coroplastic groups: the Cypro-Phoenician and Graeco-Phoenician figurines. If for the Graeco-Phoenician group one can detect a certain local development, the phenomenon of the imported Cypriot figurines instead seems more problematic. This paper, therefore, aims to introduce this coroplastic group.