Kition (kingdom)
Coordinates: 34 ° 55 '23.5 " N , 33 ° 37' 48.9" E
Kition ( ancient Greek Κίτιον Kítion , Latin Citium , Phoenician kt / kty ) was an Iron Age kingdom on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus .
location
The excavated sanctuary complex of Kition is located in the vicinity of today's Chrysopolitissa Church, this area marks the northern part of the late Bronze Age city complex, which extended about 1200 meters to the south and was surrounded by a fortress wall.
Surname
According to Flavius Josephus , Cethimus , a son of Gomer , ruled the island "Cethima", which is now called Cyprus, but Kition has kept the name of Cethim and is called "Kitius" by the Greeks.
history
The capital of the Kingdom of Kition was the city of the same name in the northern urban area of today's Larnaka .
Flavius Josephus , who refers to Menander of Ephesus , "who had translated the archives of Tire from Phoenician into Greek", reports that Hiram of Tire led a campaign against the Ityceans (also Euchii or Titii) at the beginning of his reign refused to pay their toll. However, he was able to successfully subdue them. It was mostly assumed that this place was Utica in what is now Tunisia . Katzenstein, however, identifies this Itykaia with Kition.
Kition was a vassal state of Sidon ; Flavius Josephus reports (again after Menander) that King Elulaios of Sidon subjugated the rebellious city of Kition around 730. According to his annals, Sennacherib appointed a certain Ittobaal as governor in Kition to succeed Lulî (Elulaios?), Who had been executed by the Assyrians.
The city god of Kition was Reshef .
King Pumjaton of Kition submitted to Alexander the Great , who apparently confirmed him in office. After 322 he began minting coins again. In 312 he was murdered on the orders of Ptolemy because he had allied himself with Antigonus I Monophthalmos .
Kings
From around the Persian period, the kings also carried the title of King of Idalion , in Phoenician "mlk kty w'dyl".
- Baalmilkon I., ca.475
- Milkjaton , son of Baalrom, approx. 392–362 BC Chr.
- Pumjaton , son of Milkjaton, 362-312 BC Chr.
archeology
The excavation site of ancient Kition is about 500 m from the archaeological museum and can be visited. In the 12th century BC Chr. The city was fortified with huge walls. In the oldest layers there is a Mycenaean influence, which is also reflected in the Cyclopean city walls. The city was later Phoenician , as shown by the burials in Skala and the temples. The Phoenician temple at Kition is the largest ever found; it measured 27 × 9 m. Its main room was open in the middle. The roof was supported by pillars. The Holy of Holies was raised significantly and measured 22 × 2.5 m. There were probably three images of gods here. There was an altar in front of this room.
Research history
In the summer of 1879 the British tried to dry out the north of the 'Skala' of Larnaka , a marshland near the sea, the former port of Kition, in order to combat malaria . To do this, they removed a nearby rocky slope, the Pamboula (Bamboula), in which the necropolis of Kition was located. The Kition stele of Sargon II , which is now in Berlin, was found here in 1845 under unknown circumstances . A British officer, Lieutenant Sinclair, directed the work and also noticed the discoveries. The German archaeologist Max Ohnefalsch-Richter , who has been in Cyprus since 1878, also observed the excavations. A July 1879 report by Sinclair gives some details. Some of the finds were brought to the British Museum in London on the instructions of the British Foreign Minister Lord Granville . There are also two Phoenician inscriptions among these finds. In them the temple of 'Astart in Kition is mentioned.
Famous citizens
Kition is the birthplace of the philosopher Zenon , founder of the school of the Stoa .
literature
Reports of the French excavations
- Yves Calvet: Les timbres amphoriques. (= Publications de la Mission Archéologique Française de Kition-Bamboula 1; Mémoire / Éditions Recherche sur les civilizations 13). Ed. Recherche sur les civilizations, Paris 1982, ISBN 2-86538-029-7 .
- Jean-François Salles: Les égouts de la ville classique. (= Publications de la Mission Archéologique Française de Kition-Bamboula 2; Mémoire: Éditions Recherche sur les civilizations 27). Ed. Recherche sur les civilizations, Paris 1983, ISBN 2-86538-069-6 .
- Marguerite Yon, Annie Caubet: Le sondage LN 13 (bronze récent et géométrique I). (= Publications de la Mission Archéologique Française de Kition-Bamboula 3; Mémoire: Éditions Recherche sur les civilizations 56). Ed. Recherche sur les civilizations, Paris 1985, ISBN 2-86538-125-2 .
- Jean-François Salles (ed.): Les niveaux hellénistiques. (= Publications de la Mission Archéologique Française de Kition-Bamboula 4). Ed. Recherche sur les civilizations, Paris 1993, ISBN 2-86538-240-0 .
- Marguerite Yon: Kition dans les textes. Testimonia littéraires et épigraphiques et Corpus des inscriptions. (= Publications de la Mission Archéologique Française de Kition-Bamboula 5). Ed. Recherche sur les civilizations, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-86538-292-3 .
Further literature
- Andreas Schneider: Cyprus, 8000 years of history, archaeological treasures, Byzantine churches, Gothic cathedrals . In: DuMont art travel guide . DuMont Reiseverlag, Cologne 1988, ISBN 3-7701-1857-X , Kalavassos, p. 32, 136–139 (map of city royals and other ancient sites in Cyprus - general plan).
- D. David Luckenbill : Annals of Sennacherib. The Chicago University Press, Chicago 1924, p. 77 ( digitized version of the Oriental Institute ; PDF; 6.3 MB).
- Olivier Masson , Maurice Sznycer : Recherches sur les Phéniciens de Chypre. (= Publications du Center de Recherches d'Histoire et de Philologie de la IVe Section de l'École Pratique des Hautes Études II. Hautes études orientales 3). Geneva a. a. 1972.
- Javier Teixidor: The Phoenician Inscriptions of the Cesnola Collection. In: Metropolitan Museum Journal. 11, 1976, pp. 55-70.
- Marguerite Yon : Kition de Chypre. (= Guides archéologiques de l'Institut Français du Proche-Orient 4). Ed. Recherche sur les civilizations, Paris 2006, ISBN 2-86538-302-4 .
Web links
swell
- ↑ Flavius Josephus, Jüdische Antiquities 6.1.
- ↑ Flavius Josephus, Jüdische Antiquities 8,146.
- ↑ H. J. Katzenstein: The History of Tire. Schocken, Jerusalem 1973, OCLC 310746937 , pp. 84ff.
- ^ Javier Teixidor: The Phoenician Inscriptions of the Cesnola Collection. In: Metropolitan Museum Journal. 11, 1976, p. 56.
- ↑ after Diodor
- ↑ Patricia Maynor Bikai: Cyprus and the Phoenicians. In: Biblical Archaeologist. 52/4, 1989, p. 207.
