Cyprus between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (ca. 600?00) ─ An Island in Transition

Research on early medieval Cyprus has focused on the late antique ‘golden age’ (late fourth/early fifth to seventh century) and the so-called Byzantine ‘reconquista’ (post-965 AD) while overlooking the intervening period. This phase was characterized, supposedly, by the division of the political sovereignty between the Umayyads and the Byzantines, bringing about the social and demographic dislocation of the population of the island. This book proposes a different story of continuities and slow transformations in the fate of Cyprus between the late sixth and the early ninth centuries.

Analysis of new archaeological evidence shows signs of a continuing ‘Constantinopolitan link’, and the disappearance of Byzantine coins and the persistence of Arab-Byzantine coinage in the late seventh century reveals less an economic maelstrom than a transformation of the Imperial fiscal structures. This belies the idea of Cyprus as an independent province loosely tied to Constantinople and allows us to draw a different picture of the cultural identities, political practices and hierarchy of wealth and power in Cyprus during this era.

Luca Zavagno received his B.A. degree in History from the University Ca’Foscari, Venice; he completed his Ph.D. studies at the University of Birmingham on the society, culture, economics and politics of Byzantine cities. He is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Bilkent University and Visiting Professor of Byzantine Art History at University Ca’Foscari, Venice. Dr. Zavagno is the author of many articles on the early Medieval Mediterranean, of the edited volume Islands of Eastern Mediterranean. A History of Cross Cultural Encounters (with Ozlem Caykent) and of Cities in Transition: Urbanism in Byzantium Between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (British Archaeological Reports-International Series, 2009).