Keswani/Mortuary Ritual, 4. The Early and Middle Bronze Age

The Early and Middle Bronze periods in Cyprus pose a major contrast to the preceding Chalcolithic era in almost every aspect of material culture and socioeconomic life. The chapter argues that Early Cypriot and Middle Cypriot mortuary practices evolved into a unique and locally rooted system that may initially have distinguished but ultimately united communities of recent immigrants and older inhabitants in a broadly shared complex of social representations and ancestral ideologies. Moreover, it introduces programs of mortuary ritual, patterns in burial group composition, as well as the origins and elaboration of the EC-MC chamber tomb tradition.