Manning/Critical Approaches, 5. Placing Politiko Phorades in the Historiography and Evolution of Late Cypriot Metallurgy

Since the discovery of extensive copper workshops in the major coastal urban centre of Enkomi and copper oxhide ingots bearing Cypro-Minoan signs, the production and trade of copper in the Proto historic Bronze Age has been a key research question in Cypriot Archaeology. A. Bernard Knapp was, however, the one scholar who tried for the first time to see production of copper through a theoretical lens and investigate how the industry and the trade of copper was organized. Through the Sydney Cyprus Survey Project, which he designed and directed, and the excavation of the primary smelting workshop of Politiko Phorades he added a substantial body of evidence which enables us today to better understand these issues. The aim of this paper is to review current evidence regarding the production and trade of Cypriot copper and the organization of the industry in the earliest phase of the Proto-historic Bronze Age.