The End of the Middle Roman III Period at Polis

I’ve long wanted to give a paper on our work on Cyprus which adapts the chronology and discourse of the Roman and Late Roman period to the conventions of the Cypriot and Aegean Bronze Age. Thus, instead of talking about the Roman or Late Roman period, we’d talk about things like the Middle Roman IIIC transition to the Late Roman I period or the Late Roman IIIC period and various sub-Late Roman periods.

I think it would help people take our period more seriously.

Most scholars are inclined to see the “MRIIIC seismic paroxysm” as the cause for the end of the MRIIIC period on Cyprus. The tangled events of this period form a backdrop to the appearance of new forms of pottery, new monumental architecture, and various aspects of social, political, and economic resilience that characterize the LRIA-LRIB period. The construction of monumental and impressive basilicas in the LRII and LRIII period is but one of the most obvious cultural changes that took place during this dynamic and very, very important time in the history of the island.

In many ways our work on the MRIIIC transition parallels our recent work on the murky transition from the LRIIIC period to the sub-Late Roman period on the island. This transition, like the end of the MRIIIC period, reflects architectural innovation (the vaulted- and domed-church builders), demographic change, new forms of material culture (including the possible arrival of groups associated with the so-called “Glazed Ceramic” forms of material culture alongside alongside the persistence of so-called “hand-made ware” peoples), and transformations that anticipate the organization of the modern Cypriot political landscape. Of course, I’m open to the interpretation that same sub-LRIIIC groups produced both the garish (by modern standards) glazed pottery as produced the more sophisticated hand-made and even red-slipped wheel made pottery of the earlier LCIIIC period. This remains, to me at least, a valuable new horizon for research.

Thank you, and I won’t be taking any questions are this time.