How do the cultures of Crete and Cyprus, the two great islands of the
eastern Mediterranean, compare in their history and development from the
3rd millennium to the 1st millennium BC? What was similar and what was
different in their social and political, economic and technological, and
religious and mortuary practices and behaviours, and in the natural
settings and choices of places for settlements? Why, and how, did
convergences and divergences come about? Why for instance did monumental
buildings appear in Cyprus several centuries after they had emerged in
Crete? And what was the impact on Cypriot society of the island's rich
copper resources, while Crete as a rule had to import the metal? How and
why did Cyprus manage an apparently much more peaceful transition from
the Bronze Age to the Iron Age than Crete? These are among the important
questions that a leading group of experts on the two islands addressed
at Parallel Lives, a pioneering conference in Nicosia organised by the
British School at Athens, the University of Crete and the University of
Cyprus, to compare and discuss the islands' cultural trajectories
diachronically from c. 3000 BC through their Bronze Ages and down to
their loss of independence in 300 BC for Cyprus and 67 BC for Crete.
Papers given then are now presented in fully revised form as chapters in
this book, which is the first to bring together the study of Crete and
Cyprus in this way, while starting with their insular geo-cultural
identities. It will be a valuable resource for students of both islands,
for all who are interested in ancient material cultures and mentalities
in the Mediterranean, as well as those engaged in island studies across
the world.
