Remarks at the Kennedy Center on the Occasion of the Presentation of an Ancient Amphora by the Cyprus Government

Washington, D.C., 14 May 1981

It gives me great pleasure to present, on behalf of the Government and people of Cyprus, this ancient amphora from our small island, to share space in this modern edifice of your great country. It is a token from the people of Cyprus to the people of America, express- ing friendship and a sincere wish to enlarge and strengthen the ties between them – hence the welcome presence here of several members of the newly formed “American Friends of Cyprus” association. It is right and fitting that this concrete reminder of these feelings should be exhibited at this unique center of culture which bears the name of the late President Kennedy. I recall with emotion the memory in 1962 when, as a junior official, I participated in Washington in the ceremony in which Presi- dent Kennedy received with great honours our late President and founder of the Republic of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios. This amphora, recently uncovered in the island, dates back to the eighth century B.C., and is of the Cypro-Geometric Period. Amphoras of this type were extensively used in the ancient world of the Eastern Mediterranean. This was a time of prosperity and, I may even say, of glory for Cyprus, which was described as “Mistress of the Seas” during that period! Our teeming forests provided ample timber for the construction of sailing ships and our abun- dant mines furnished the copper by which weapons and other implements were made. In those ancient times, the Cyprus city states were famous and prospered through shipping and commerce. Cypriot men sailed and oared their ships to every port of the known world. Amphoras, such as the one you see, were used to transport everything imag- inable that could be contained in them -olive oil, wine, grain, fruits and even coins: They were the forerunners of the container transports used by today’s shipping men. 376 Remarks at the Kennedy Center

The word “ancient” is, of course, a relative term. In this great new land of America, where the landing of Christopher Columbus and the arrival of the “Mayflower” are some of the outer landmarks, twenty eight centuries seems like a very long time ago. In the world of the Mediterranean – and I do not mean to be complacent or patronizing –, with traceable signs of civilization going back to 6000 years B.C., it seems much more recent. Throughout these eight thousand years, many civilizations and cultures have had their influence on Cyprus. And today, antiquities and ancient arti- facts are ubiquitous. A plow turning up a furrow, not uncommonly, discloses some concrete remembrance from our long and eventful past; and many a diver or swimmer in the blue Mediterranean waters, which surround the island, has turned up ancient treasures – some of you may have seen the film “The Kyrenia Shipwreck”. During these centuries, conquerors came and went leaving behind some monuments and traces of their passing but never transforming the basic ethnological and cultural character of the island. The strategic location of Cyprus and its beauty and prosperity left it exposed to settlers and invaders from the three continents at the crossroads of which it lies – Europe, Asia, and Africa. But Cyprus, having become part of the Greek world of antiquity through emigration by the Mycenaeans in the 14th Century B.C., to be fol- lowed by new waves of colonizers from Greece after the Trojan War, retained its basic character, language and traditions ever since. As it appears in the Iliad, Kinyras, the King of Paphos, was invited by Agamemnon to participate in the expedition against Troy. Following the Trojan War, Agapenor, King of Arcadia, founded Nea Paphos and Teucer, brother of the legendary Ajax and son of the King of Salamis in Greece, founded the great city state of Salamis in Cyprus (the present-day Famagusta). At the risk of being accused as a name-dropper, let me drop a few more names which, over the centuries, have been associated with Cyprus and its history so that you might see our island in its broader perspective. As most of you of course know, according to legend, the Greek Goddess of Love and Beauty, Aphrodite (or Venus, to use also her Latin name) emerged from the foam of the beautiful sea near Paphos – and, because of this the ancient poets referred to her as “KYΠPIΣ”1 and “ΠAΦIA”.2 From throughout the eastern Mediterranean, the faithful came to pay homage to her in the place of her birth. What is less well known is that Zeno, the founder of the Stoic School of Philosophy, was a Cypriot from Kitium (today’s Larnaca); that the Cypriot

1 Of Cyprus. 2 Of Paphos.