Reading path

Everyday life

Kings, temples and trade fill most histories, yet most ancient Cypriots were farmers. This route looks at their lives: the houses they built, the villages they lived in across the Bronze Age, what they ate and how they stored it, what they wore and how they made cloth, and how they fell ill and were treated.

Introductory · 10 steps · 2 hr 25 min

Start reading →

Step 1 · Daily Life · 11 min read
Subsistence, Craft, and Community in Prehistoric and Archaic Cyprus
The overview: how ordinary Cypriots farmed, herded, cooked, built houses and made pots, tools and cloth.
How ordinary Cypriots farmed, herded, cooked, built houses and made pots, tools and cloth from the Neolithic to the Cypro-Archaic period.
Step 2 · Architecture · 11 min read
Architectural Transformations in Ancient Cyprus
The houses themselves, from Neolithic round houses to the rectilinear villages of the Bronze Age.
The built environment of ancient Cyprus, from Neolithic round houses to Bronze Age rectilinear villages, ashlar buildings and Iron Age sanctuaries.
Step 3 · Daily Life · 16 min read
Village Life in Early Bronze Age Cyprus
Life in an unwalled Early Bronze Age farming village, known best from Marki-Alonia and Sotira-Kaminoudhia.
Everyday life in the unwalled farming villages of Philia and Early Cypriot Cyprus, known best from the excavated settlements of Marki-Alonia and Sotira-Kaminoudhia.
Step 4 · Daily Life · 14 min read
Village Life in Middle Bronze Age Cyprus
Middle Cypriot households in courtyard compounds, farming, herding and making their own pots, copper tools and thread.
Everyday life in Middle Cypriot villages, where households farmed, herded and made their own pots, copper tools and thread in courtyard compounds.
Step 5 · Daily Life · 14 min read
Village Life in Late Bronze Age Cyprus
Rural life outside the Late Bronze Age towns, pieced together from a few farming, mining, storage and pottery-making sites.
Rural life in Late Cypriot Cyprus outside the towns, pieced together from a few excavated farming, mining, storage and pottery-making sites.
Step 6 · Daily Life · 15 min read
Food and Diet in Ancient Cyprus
What Cypriots grew, herded, hunted, cooked and drank, from the first Neolithic villages to the end of the Cypro-Archaic period.
What Cypriots grew, herded, hunted, cooked and drank from the first Neolithic villages to the end of the Cypro-Archaic period.
Step 7 · Daily Life · 14 min read
Food Storage in Ancient Cyprus: Pits, Pithoi and Storerooms
Where the harvest went: Chalcolithic pits, household jars and the great pithos halls of the Late Bronze Age towns.
How Cypriots stored grain, oil and wine, from Chalcolithic pits and household jars to the great pithos halls of the Late Bronze Age towns.
Step 8 · Tools & Technologies · 15 min read
Spindle Whorls and Textile Tools in Ancient Cyprus
Spinning, weaving and dyeing, from Neolithic bone needles to the terracotta whorls and loom weights of the Bronze Age.
The tools of spinning, weaving and dyeing in ancient Cyprus, from Neolithic bone needles to the terracotta whorls and loom weights of the Bronze Age.
Step 9 · Daily Life · 18 min read
Clothing and Dress in Ancient Cyprus
What people wore, reconstructed from figurines, statues, textile tools and metal fasteners.
What Cypriots wore from the Neolithic to the Cypro-Classical period, reconstructed from figurines, statues, textile tools and metal fasteners.
Step 10 · Daily Life · 17 min read
Medicine and Healing in Ancient Cyprus
Disease, drugs, doctors and healing cults, from Neolithic skeletons to the physician Onasilos of Idalion.
Disease, drugs, doctors and healing cults in ancient Cyprus, from Neolithic skeletons to the physician Onasilos of Idalion in the early fifth century BCE.

Start with Subsistence, Craft, and Community in Prehistoric and Archaic Cyprus →

Other reading paths