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The emergence of urbanism marks a profound change in the settlement pattern that prevailed on Cyprus during the prehistoric and protohistoric eras. Following the Neolithic "agricultural revolution" that evolved into the "secondary products revolution " of the Late Chalcolithic and Early Cypriot Bronze ages, urbanization was the most prominent innovation of the Middle/Late Cypriot Bronze Age transition. In retrospect, scholars are still wondering why the urban revolution started on Cyprus fairly late compared with other islands in the Mediterranean. However, it is generally agreed that the gradual movement from rural hinterland to coastal towns was not merely an internal socioeconomic process, but rather the outcome of overseas demand for Cypriot copper. Archaeological excavations indicate that the process of urbanization accelerated during the Late Cypriot period, although there is no consensus as to when it started to decline. Given the archaeological and historical evidence, it appears that on Cyprus this process was not an isolated local phenomenon. This paper reassesses the state of Late Cypriot urbanism in its wider Mediterranean perspective.
INTRODUCTION
Recent petrographic analyses of five "Alashiya Tablets" found in the palatial archives of El-Amarna and Ugarit (now in the British Museum and the Musée du Louvre) indicate that the fabric of these clay tablets, addressed by the "King of Alashiya" to his Egyptian and Syrian royal counterparts in the 14th-13th centuries B.C.E., originated in Cyprus (Goren et al. 2003; 2004). Consequently, the analyzed tablets (four from El-Amarna and one from Ugarit) provide decisive support to those scholars who maintain that the toponym "Alashiya," also mentioned in other documents of the second millennium (Egyptian, Syrian, Babylonian, Anatolian, and Mycenaean), is to be located on Cyprus, and more specifically, in a certain territorial entity of the island (Stech 1982; Baurain 1984: 19-25, 186-233, 277-321; Knapp 1985; Charpin 1992; Hadjisavvas 1996a).1
There is an ongoing debate as to whether urbanism on Cyprus reached its prime in LC IIC or in LC IIIA (Karageorghis 1990; Merrillees 1992; Knapp 1994; 1997b; South 1995; Manning 1998). Eighteen years ago I postulated that Cypriot urbanism peaked in LC IIC (Negbi 1986). The present paper elaborates on that view by comparing the state of Cypriot urbanism just before and just after the upheavals that expanded throughout the Mediterranean ca. 1200...