| As you tour Enkomi, near Famagusta in North
Cyprus, you might imagine you are a copper merchant during
the city's heyday between 1300 and 1100 B.C. Your city is
now only about 500 years old.
Let us imagine you are leading a donkey caravan laden with
copper ingots. You have been to the copper mines in Troodos
Mountains in the interior of the island. Copper is smelted
from its ore close to the mines, where there is a lot of wood
to keep the smelting fires hot. Your ingots are shaped like
oxhides and are famous throughout the eastern Mediterranean
world. By Greek times, copper was so synonymous with Cyprus
that they named the metal for the island.
You approach your walled city through the farmland that feeds
it. The breeze from the sea is cooling as you wend your way
through the olive groves, the vineyards, and the fields. Sheep
and goats graze on the hillsides.
You are filled with civic pride as you near the massive walls.
Your city is thoroughly up-to-date for its time, with gates
set symmetrically and streets crossing at right angles. Not
for you the ancient cities with their rabbit warren of twisting
alleys. You didn't call your city Enkomi, but possibly Alasia.
Alasia is mentioned in Egyptian and Hittite records from this
time, perhaps referring to the whole island of Cyprus, perhaps
to Enkomi as its most important city.
Your home is built of good stone. Its many rooms surround
a central court, where your donkeys are unloaded. In our time,
you can see the first few courses of stone and trace the outline
of the houses.
First you, the merchant, must instruct your scribe to record
the shipment. He uses Enkomi's own invention, a script similar
to Minoan and Mycenaean, which in our time we will call Cypro-Minoan.
He writes on the clay tablets so traditional in the Middle
East, but uses a simple syllabary, rather than the complex
cuneiform writing.
You greet your family and trade your dusty robes for finer,
embroidered clothes that befit your wealth. Then you are quickly
off to the market sector near the port. You want to hear news
of the great battles at Troy. Troy controls the passage to
the North Sea, where Cypriot copper is exchanged for wheat
and dried fish. In fact, political and military conditions
throughout the known world are important to you, for your
copper is traded everywhere. The siege at Troy has dragged
on for years, and copper prices have risen with the demand
for weapons.
The market is vibrant with color and sound. You hear Hittites
arguing with Syrians and Egyptians haggling with Cilicians.
Most of the people are robed in brilliantly dyed cloaks, but
the Egyptians stand out in their snow-white linen. You find
your favorite tavern, where your cronies welcome you. They
want to know about road conditions on the way to the copper
country. You want to catch up on local news.
After a good gossip and perhaps some wine, bread, and olives,
you go down to the harbor at the river's edge. Changes in
the coastline have silted up the harbor in modern times. But
you, the merchant, find many ships berthed in its harbor.
You are looking for a captain who will buy your copper. You
are surrounded by a variety of languages, especially Greek
and Semitic dialects; you know enough to get by in several
of them.
After a good haggle, you sell much of your copper to a fellow
from Syria, who has wonderful ivory carvings to trade. He
also has beautiful glassware from Egypt and luxury pottery
from Mycenae in Greece. Your copper will be only part of his
load. His ship will leave port with ten tons of copper ingots.
And he's told you some shocking news. You can hardly wait
to tell your wife that the High King of the Greeks, Agamemnon,
has been divorced and deposed at his home in Mycenae. Clytemnestra,
the Queen, has taken a new husband. This affair, you know,
will not end well.
But before you go home, you decide to visit the temple of
the Horned God. The Horned God is Hittite and Alasia was under
the sway of the Hittite Empire for several centuries. The
Hittites considered Alasia "the outer limits" and
sent their exiles here. Now the Egyptians have the mastery
of Cypriot affairs. But the Horned God has been good to your
family, and a quick visit will surely help your affairs to
prosper.
Hittites yesterday, Egyptians today, tomorrow, perhaps the
upstart Greeks. As long as business is good, and pirates are
kept to a minimum, you care not a fig which foreign ruler
considers himself to be in charge.
As you pass the craftsman's quarter, the acrid smell of copper
smelting assaults your nose. Here the copper is further refined,
mixed with tin, and made into bronze. Enkomi/Alasia is famous
for its bronze statues and for its tripods, but you can find
any tool or weapon you need on these streets. Now the air
is sweeter and the noise is gentler as you pass the shops
where fine jewelry is made. You have a little gold in your
moneybag, perhaps you should have a trinket made for your
wife. Here are the ivory carvers. There, that is just the
thing – a game board and pieces inlaid with ivory. She
loves the Phoenician style.
The Phoenicians and Syrians have been coming to Enkomi for
centuries. They were always competitive among themselves,
but now, with the Mycenaean Greeks elbowing their way in,
the markets are even more volatile. All to the good, for a
canny bargainer such as yourself. And all to the good for
Enkomi's craftsmen, who have not only their own ideas, but
examples of fine art from all the known world to inspire them.
And now, to home, where you make a quick but reverent bow
to your ancestors buried beneath the floor. Enkomi is one
of the few cities where this very ancient practice continued
into the Bronze Age. How pleasant it is in the courtyard,
beneath the grape arbor. Your meal is simple -- bread, fish,
olives, figs, wine. Some night soon you will entertain your
business associates, but for tonight, you will dine with your
family.
At the end of a long and prosperous career, you and your
wife will join your ancestors in the tomb below the house.
Your wife will have the game board you bought buried with
her, along with her gold pin for her cloak, her perfumes,
and her other jewelry. You will be buried with your bronze
statue of the Horned God, who is quite out of favor by now.
You will also take to the afterlife your silver and gold bracelets,
your signet ring, and an Egyptian faience plate showing the
Nile. You have always wanted to see Egypt.
In your lifetime, the Mycenaean Greeks have become the dominant
force on Cyprus. Within a few years, an earthquake will destroy
Enkomi/Alasia. Your sons will try to rebuild their life here,
but will eventually give up and move to the new Mycenaean
town.
Enkomi will fall to ruins, and the stones from its walls
will be used again and again as new families build homes and
shops in nearby villages and towns.
More than three thousand years later, A.S. Murray will uncover
your tomb on an expedition sponsored by the British Museum.
Your bones will be left behind, but your grave goods will
be taken for display at the Museum.
Fifty years later, Claude Schaeffer's team will notice your
house. But as yet no one knows your name, nor the language
you spoke as a native of Enkomi, nor even, beyond a doubt,
the name of your city.
Copyright 2006 SeaTerra
For a non copyrighted version of this article which can be
reprinted please go to In
Their Footsteps: A Copper Merchant in Enkomi
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