Presenter(s): Samantha Mcgee − Anthropology
Faculty Mentor(s): Daphne Gallagher
Oral Session 4O
Research Area: Social Science (Anthropology/Archaeology)
Funding: Honors College Extraordinary Expenses Thesis Grant, Undergraduate Anthropology Award for Research
Cyprus has been a place of cultural interaction and exchange as long as humans have occupied it. Its location just beneath the Anatolian peninsula has made the island a meeting ground of many of the iconic Mediterranean powers of history, including Greece, Egypt, Assyria, and Persia. There has been a great deal of research on the way Cyprus was influenced by external forces, as well as how these cultural influences were engaged and manipulated on the island. However, more research is needed on the exclusively local identity of Cypriot material culture. This paper focuses on three sarcophagi covered in detailed relief sculpture from the first half of the fifth century BCE, analyzing their place as objects in their local communities. These three objects were chosen because they are similar in date and form, and are from three different cities, providing context for inter-island diversity at a time of extreme political and cultural turmoil on the island. The main focus of this research is the iconography of the relief sculpture; the local context and use of the elements and images is analyzed, as well as how the context of this iconography on the sarcophagus, and its place as an item of funerary ritual might have impacted the understanding of these objects in their local communities. I conclude that the iconography of each sarcophagus is clearly impacted by their local spatial and social context, and is also connected to political and cultural events occurring over the course of the fifth century.