In all doubtful cases, a 'squeeze' should be made by one of
the methods described in the first part of this volume and submitted
to the Keeper of Antiquities. The stamped inscriptions on the handles
of wine-jars are worth preserving, as evidence for the course of
trade.
Coins
were issued in Cyprus from the sixth century onward; first in silver;
later (in the fourth century B.C.) occasionally in gold, and from the
fourth century commonly in copper. A Ptolemaic coinage succeeded in
the third century that of the local rulers; the Roman coinage, with
inscriptions sometimes in Greek, sometimes in Latin, lasts from
Augustus to the beginning of the third century. Coins of the
Byzantine Emperors and of the Lusignan Kings are common.
[ILLUSTRATION VII: BILINGUAL (GREEK AND CYPRIOTE) DEDICATION TO
DEMETER AND PERSEPHONE FROM CURIUM.]
CHAPTER V
CENTRAL AND NORTH SYRIA
[See the diagrams of flint implements, Illustration II; of pottery
and weapons, &c., VIII & IX; of alphabets, X & XI.]
The following notes are to be accepted as only a rough and imperfect
guide, since no part of Syria, north of Palestine, has been widely or
minutely explored, and the archaeology of the earliest period, in
Central Syria, for example, is almost unknown.
The periods into which the archaeological history of Syria should be
divided are roughly, as follows:
I.
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