PREHISTORIC MAN, ETC. 347 



plements reproduce European types as well as Cypriote, 

 and this is confirmed, not only by traditional and 

 ethnological considerations, but also by the occurrence, 

 somewhat later, in the yEgean area, not only of frequent 

 amber, but of characteristically Danubian types of bronze 

 implements. 



26. The Bronze Age civilisation of Cyprus is, thanks to 

 repeated researches, far more continuously and completely 

 known than any other part of the area. It was undoubtedly 

 of very long duration, and certainly follows that of the 

 Stone Age without change or break ; and it is no exaggera- 

 tion to say that, until a period between the twelfth and the 

 eighteenth Egyptian Dynasty, Cyprus was in all essential 

 respects in advance, not only of the coasts of Asia Minor 

 and the /Egean, but even of the coast of Syria and 

 Palestine. 



27. All the earliest weapons, whether in Cyprus or 

 elsewhere, in Egypt, or the Levant, are of almost pure 

 copper. Tempering is effected, not by alloying with zinc or 

 tin, or, as in the Caucasus, with antimony from the natural 

 double-sulphide ore, but by " under-poling " the copper so 

 as to leave it hard and even brittle from the presence of 

 copper oxide. The same applies to the Egyptian copper 

 weapons of the fourth, fifth, and even sixth Dynasty ; but 

 Egypt, though later on it has important connections with 

 Cyprus, obtained its first copper from the mines of Sinai, 

 and has a set of typical forms peculiar to itself. Cyprus, 

 however, supplied the Syrian coast with copper weapons 

 down at all events to the time of the eighteenth Dynasty. 

 Stone implements are very rarely found in Cyprus, 

 and it is possible that either the island was not reached 

 much before the beginning of the Bronze Age, or that its 

 wealth of copper was discovered at once, and superseded 

 the stone age prematurely. In its earlier stages metallic 

 implements are rare, and the pottery — always made by 

 hand — is covered with a bright red glaze which was polished 

 with a stone or bone rubber (horse teeth were commonly 

 used), and ornamented, if at all, either by incised lines or 

 by pellets of clay rudely modelled after plants, snakes and 



