Cyprus, from Basileis to Strategos : social power and the archaeology of religion

Abstract

Note: Published Monograph also available: Religion and Social Transformations in Cyprus : From the Cypriot Basileis to the Hellenistic Strategos. Publisher: Brill, 2012. ISBN: 9789004224353 ; e-ISBN 9789004233805; Series: Mnemosyne, Supplements; Sub Series: Mnemosyne, Supplements, History and Archaeology of Classical Antiquity; ISSN 2352-8656, Volume 347.

This project, by focusing on the archaeology of religion, aims to understand how l'histoire événementielle, namely the political transition from segmented administration by many Cypriot Basileis to the unitary island-wide government by a foreign Ptolemaic correspondent, the Strategos, affected the socio-cultural infrastructure, the mentalité, of the island. The relation between religious and social lives, political structures and religion, and the consideration of both elite and non-elite, as well as ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ structures, remain its principal concerns throughout.