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The Cypriot economic system in the Late Classical and Early Hellenistic Periods. An analysis based on the ceramic evidence

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Borowicz S.

Recherches Archéologiques Nouvelle Serie

2010

vol. 2

33-41

The turn of the 4th and 3rd century B.C. is the time of great political and economical change in Cyprus. The extensive analysis of various literary and historical sources supplemented by the ceramic data allows us to present the economic system of Cyprus as characterized by the following features at the turn of the Classical and Hellenistic periods: (1) the primary role of port cities; (2) a significant role of cabotage trade; (3) the division of the island into the "rich" coast, which participated in the Mediterranean "life" and the “poor” interior reduced to the role of the raw material base; (4) the existence of two parallel economic cycles: closed, internal cycle associated with what we might call "household economy", and the open cycle, connected with regular urban markets; (5) the limited movement of resources between port cites and inland settlements; (6) the basic role of Cypriot sanctuaries, which functioned as local centres of economic life (e.g. "industrial" production); (7) the autarkic nature of these Cypriot kingdoms which had direct access to the sea; (10) the “life” of the economic system of Cyprus was defined by the half-year cycle. Furthermore, in terms of transformation of the system, we might conclude that: (1) at the turn of the 4th and 3rd century B.C. there is no visible significant break in the development of the economic structure of Cyprus. It appears that the economic transformation was not a drastic process; (2) the changes that occurred in the economic structure of Cyprus influenced mostly the large coastal cities that were the local centres of the system; (3) in the sphere of internal relations, the final division of Cyprus into the western isolated part and economically well-developed eastern part vanished. From the methodological point of view the collected observations allowed to conclude that every economic system can be studied in view of its structure – the relationship between and the configuration of its items. One can also focus attention on the (self)development of the system, or on the phenomenon of coordination (in time and space) of behaviour of individual/groups of variables. Nevertheless, in this research, particular emphasis was placed on the process of development of the system and the problem of its discontinuation in relation to the evolution of variables relevant for its structure. The author focused on the processes of transformation and dynamic nature immanent to all systems. This is due to the author’s general conviction about the artificiality of divisions in the post-Droysen world, which marks sharp boundaries between "Classical" and "Hellenistic" periods.

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1 Recherches Archéologiques Nouvelle Serie

1 Borowicz S.

1 2010

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The Cypriot economic system in the Late Classical and Early Hellenistic Periods. An analysis based on the ceramic evidence