Cyprus and the Land of Israel: The Mediterranean as a Bridge and the Diverse Consequences of Cultural Contact

From at least the early second millennium BCE, the eastern Mediterranean served
more as a bridge than a barrier, and it appears as if the land of Israel and Cyprus
maintained continuous maritime connections ever since. This relationship is best
exemplified in pottery, and from the Middle Bronze Age1
onwards, ceramic objects
manufactured on Cyprus were almost always present in the Southern Levant, often in
large quantities. Cypriote influence can further be seen in local imitations that were
quite popular in various periods.
Contacts, however, can produce a variety of outcomes, and in addition to the
importation of actual artifacts, and evidence of their emulation by indigenous potters,
some local groups reacted in other ways and even rejected the foreign imports. In this
chapter, I briefly present the overall pattern of continued contacts between Cyprus and
Canaan during the second and first millennia BCE and will then focus on two specific
and distinct Iron Age phenomena—the Ashdod Ware of the southern coastal plain
and the Israelite avoidance of imported pottery—each reflecting a different outcome
of cultural interaction