Religion and Social Transformations in Cyprus: From the Cypriot Basileis to the Hellenistic Strategos

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BRILL, Oct 19, 2012 - Religion - 604 pages
This monograph focuses on religion to explore how the socio-cultural infrastructure of Cyprus was affected by the transition from segmented administration by many Cypriot kings to the island-wide government by a foreign Ptolemaic correspondent. It approaches politico-religious ideological responses and structures of symbolism through the study of sacred landscapes, specific iconographic elements, and archaeological contexts and architecture, as well as through textual and epigraphic evidence. A fresh approach to the transition is put forward, connecting the island more emphatically with its longue durée. Moving beyond the field of Cypriot studies, this work also serves as a paradigm for the study of religion in relation to social power in other fields of classics and, in particular, for the enrolment of other areas of the Mediterranean into the political and cultural Hellenistic oikoumene.
 

Contents

Introduction
1
Historical Narratives Theoretical Considerations and a Methodology for Interpretation
7
Chapter Two Sacred Landscapes
73
Change and Variation
163
Chapter Four Cypriot Portraits
295
Chapter Five Conclusions
355
Epilogue
369
Appendix One Landscapes
373
Appendix Two Portraits
395
Bibliography
411
Figures
483
Index
591
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About the author (2012)

Giorgos Papantoniou, Ph.D. (2008) in Classics, Trinity College Dublin, is currently a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow at Trinity College Dublin. He has published extensively on Cypriot Iron Age city-kingdoms, Hellenistic Cyprus, and Cypriot sanctuaries and religion.

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