Exploring the Social Lives of Cylinder Seals in Late Cypriot Society

This thesis examines how cylinder seals became socially embedded in Late Bronze Age Cyprus. Although these objects appear throughout the Near East and Mesopotamia at the time, their use in Cyprus appears unique. To explore this, cylinder seals are studied according to funerary, sanctuary and settlement types of findspot. Different patterns of social engagement are then examined according to the context of their use and deposition. They are analysed through a theoretical lens, specifically focusing on the concepts of object biography, the ideological potency of geographic distance, and object inalienability, to examine how these objects were recontextualised and reinterpreted within their new Cypriot cultural context. The diachronic analysis of the cylinder seals found in different types of sites across the island highlights distinctive patterns of appropriation as well as cultural and material entanglement. It further allows us to explore how these objects were used to actively construct and maintain the identity and authority of local political-ideological elites. As a result, this study argues that cylinder seals were reconfigured to fit a distinctly Cypriot cultural need.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Humphrey, Thomas John William

• CC Archaeoleg
• CD Argraffiadau Diplomatig. Archifau. Seliau
• DE Rhanbarth Môr y Canoldir. Y Byd Groeg-Rufeinig
• GN Anthropoleg

Dc Identifier Grantnumber

UWTSD

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.uwtsd.ac.uk:2963