Reflections on the Phoenician Bowls of Cyprus. Evidence from an Exhibit at the Cyprus Museum, Nicosia

Abstract

One of the many exhibits at the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia is a decorated bronze bowl discovered in the village of Armou, in the Paphos district. The object is dated to the Cypro-Archaic period. This study addresses the principal issues surrounding the bowl housed in the Cyprus Museum. It re-examines a range of unresolved research questions concerning the so-called Phoenician bowls of the Mediterranean. In doing so, it considers the bowl’s social context and comparable examples, its function within a specific historical framework, its varied iconography, and, finally, the choice of bronze as its manufacturing material in the seventh century BCE.