The Ship Graffiti from Late Bronze Age–Early Iron Age Kition, Cyprus: New Additions and Reconsiderations 40 Years Later

Forty years ago, a corpus of ship graffiti was published from the site of Kition Kathari in Larnaka Bay, Cyprus. High-resolution laser scanning undertaken in 2024 revealed more incised images than had previously been recognised, especially on the southern façade of the monumental Temple 1. Initially regarded as exclusively from the Late Bronze Age, our combined analysis of stratigraphic data with iconographic comparanda demonstrates that the graffiti were carved continuously from the Late Bronze Age into the Early Iron Age. Additionally, the range of ship morphologies reveals associations with Levantine and Aegean shipbuilding traditions, as well as some local Cypriot peculiarities.