From at least the early second millennium BCE, the eastern
Mediterranean served more as a bridge than a barrier, and it appears as if the
land of Israel and Cyprus maintained continuous maritime connections ever
since. This relationship is best exemplified in pottery, and from the Middle
Bronze Age onwards, ceramic objects manufactured on Cyprus were almost always
present in the Southern Levant, often in large quantities. Cypriote influence
can further be seen in local imitations that were quite popular in various
periods. (Avraham Faust, “Cyprus and the Land of Israel: The
Mediterranean as a Bridge and the Diverse Consequences of Cultural Contact,” in
Cyprus Within the Biblical World: Are Borders Barriers?, ed. James H.
Charlesworth and Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski [Jewish and Christian Context and
Related Studies 32; London: T&T Clark, 2021], 25)
The Mediterranean
as a Bridge and the Diverse Consequences of Contact
Despite ups and
downs, contacts between Cyprus and the Southern Levant during the second and
first millennium BCE never really ceased, exhibiting the mediating nature of
the Mediterranean, bridging between the two regions and enabling cultural
contact.
Cypriot pottery
was imported to the land of Israel continuously during the second millennium
BCE, although some decline is evident toward the end of the millennium (during
the southern Levantine Iron I or the LC IIIB-CG IA in Cyprus). In the early Iron
II, international trade resumed on a larger scale, and this is exemplified by
various imports, for example, the BoR pottery.
It is in this
period, when our data is far more detailed, that we can see a number of
interesting processes, showing that contact does not necessarily result in similarity
(Eriksen 2013, 23). In some regions (Philistia) the impact of contact was so
great that we witness not only importation of actual vessels but the emergence
of a new pottery family, emulating it. This is of course a direct result of the
contacts across the Mediterranean.
In some other regions,
namely in Israelite sites, this pottery-like other types of imported ware—was practically
avoided. This avoidance was not a direct reaction to Cypriot influence but
rather part of the broader Israelite experience with contact with other groups.
Still, even if it was a result of contact with other “foreign” groups (i.e.,
non-Cypriot), this experience was extended to Israelites’ reaction to Cypriot
imports.
Thus, in Iron II
we can see two opposite reactions to international contact and trade: adoption
and avoidance. One way or the other, it is important to stress that avoidance
can only exist when there is contact between groups, and even the Israelite
aversion to the use of imports, while clearly part of a much wider “mind-set,”
should be attributed to contact with other cultures. (Ibid., 36-37)
