The city kingdom of Idalion flourished as the most prominent of the ten city kingdoms on Cyprus during the sixth and seventh centuries B.C. The island of Cyprus was an important trade center and cultural “crossroad” in antiquity, controlled and influenced in different periods by the Mycenaean civilization, the sea-faring Phoenicians and the Philistines of the Bible, Archaic Greece, the Persians in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Roman Empire and even Christian Byzantium. Cyprus also influenced other cultures as well, as evidenced by the presence of Cypriot copper and pottery all over the Mediterranean world—including important sites like Bronze Age Biblical Megiddo.
The site of Idalion has been continuously inhabited since the Bronze/Iron Age; the village of Dhali sits in the same location today. The city was a center for the copper trade as well as the Cult of the Mother Goddess and her consort—who later became Aphrodite and Adonis.
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Dali, Nicosia, Cyprus
Bronze, Iron, Hellenistic, Roman
Pamela Gaber is professor of archaeology and Judaic studies at Lycoming College.