The work carried out from December 1st, 2020 to November 30, 2022 was divided in three different phases: 1) the collection of published data, 2) the first-hand study of archaeological material kept in museum collections in France, the United Kingdom and the United States; 3) the processing and consolidation of collected data leading to the project’s conclusions. As a result, a corpus of 530 artefacts have been gathered (Fig. 1). However, all of them cannot be considered “imitations”. The project’s results highlighted that several shapes and motifs were circulating so broadly in the Eastern Mediterranean that potters and craftsmen might not have always been aware of the origin of the morphological or stylistic features they were using, leading to the production of consciously or unconsciously “influenced” artefacts, a phenomenon mainly restricted to the second part of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1400-1200 BCE).
The reassessment of discovery contexts (Axis 2) has revealed that imitations are often discovered alongside their imported models, suggesting that they were not meant to compensate for a lack of Cypriot imports. Their functions also seem to have been similar to the ones of genuine Cypriot ceramics. The fondness for these artefacts prompted not only the production of faithful imitations but also the creation of “entangled objects” inspired by Cypriot prototypes, which combine both foreign and local features. The firsthand study of 131 imitations kept in Museum collections led to further important results thanks to the examination of macro-traces documented using RTI photography. The images obtained were used to highlight characteristic details of the different pottery traditions, such as shaving marks (Fig. 2). It was shown that, although Cypriot shapes and decorative motifs were imitated, the techniques were - in most cases – local.
In addition, in Egypt, Cypriot shapes were occasionally transposed in raw materials different from the ones of the original imports. These transpositions were made in travertine, serpentine or breccia, the type of stone being related to the social status of the owner of the artefact (Fig. 3). Several of them borrowed elements from traditional Egyptian stone forms, creating a hybrid product with a distinct identity. Cypriot juglets were also transposed in coloured glass (c. 1530 BCE) in order to imitate semi-precious stones such as lapis lazuli and turquoise (Fig. 4). The choice of a specific Cypriot shape to create luxury cosmetic juglets, using the newly mastered glass technology, shows how valued must have been the original Cypriot models (Axes 3-4). Cypriot imports represented a highly specialised trade, but they had a long-lasting influence on the Eastern Mediterranean craftsmanship. Therefore, imitations of Cypriot artefacts inform us not only about the ties that bind Cyprus, but also about the specific tastes and needs of the societies that produced them.The project’s results were disseminated at five international conferences and one seminar and through the preparation of three scientific publications. The project was closed by an international workshop gathering speakers from seven different countries (France, Greece, Austria, Turkey, Lebanon, the United Kingdom, the United States), the proceedings of which have been accepted for publication by the host institution’s publishing house.
