East defeats West: Naval War and Cross-cultural Adaptation on Classical Cyprus (original) (raw)
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Literary and iconographic accounts suggest that the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age (LH IIIB-LH IIIC) in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean was marked by increased threats on both land and sea. This includes the iconography of warriors and warfare, particularly in Egypt and in the Aegean world, where the first representations of true ship-to-ship combat are seen. This paper investigates these early iconographic and literary accounts, asking whether they should be seen as “warfare” in the formal sense, as piratical (and anti-piratical) naval operations, or as a combination of both, and seeking to define these terms in the context of the Late Bronze-Early Iron Age transition.
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