The third son of Javan was named “Kittim”. Yet again we see the ‘-im’ suffix implying plurality, and a nation of peoples rather than a specific city or single ethnic group. Both the Book of Jeremiah 2:10 and Ezekial 27:6 refer to this place as the “Isles of Kittim”, while Isaiah 23:1 and Numbers 24:24 mention it in conjunction with ships. In Ezekiel the reference includes a mention of “rudders made of ivory”, a well known Cypriot export product. Evidence from the 14th century Uluburun shipwreck, one of the most well documented ancient wrecks, shows multiple finished ivory products such as writing board hinges1 and cosmetic boxes, as well as raw unfinished ivory.2 Clear historical traditions associating Kittim with Cyprus helps us identify the location as the settlement of Kition. While previously we identified Cyprus as Alashiya, still potentially linked with Elishah, the more likely identification for Elishah was the Aeolians. While the Aeolians did have a presence on the island, much like Sardinia, the cultural and ethnic background of Cyprus is complex and rich.

Bronze Age Cyprus begins with a wave of Anatolian settlers circa the year 2400 BCE. By the year 1900 BCE and through 1600 BCE we get to what we can term the “Alashiya” phase. During this period multiple diplomatic records from Egypt, Nesa (another name for the Hittite Empire in this period, yet to be called “Hattusa”), Assyria, and Ugarit (the major Syrian coastal city-state acting as regional power of the Levant), all corroborate usage of the name “Alashiya”, rather than Kittim, or Kition. It was not until the 13th century BCE when the settlement Kition was first colonized by Mycenaean Greeks following the Trojan War - later known as Achaeans - that the name “Kittim” came into usage.

According to Pausanias in his Description of Greece (8.5.1)3; he claims that the Achaeans in the southern Peloponnese prior to the arrival of Dorians spoke a variety of Proto-Arcadocypriot. The connection between this language - spoken during the Iron Age only in the highlands - clearly attests to a relationship between the pre-Dorian Mycenaeans that left mainland Greece and the Arcado-Cypriot speakers that end up on Cyprus. Furthermore Arcadocypriot retains many of the characteristics found in Mycenaean such as the /w/ sound, potentially solving one aspect of the “Wilusa>Ilium” mystery, with Ilium originally being called “Wilion” in Mycenaean.

Following the Bronze Age, extensive waves of Phoenician migrants made their way to Cyprus and Kition, permanently leaving their mark with major Hellenistic philosophers such as Zeno of Citium coming from Kition and having their ancestry disputed as Greek, or Phoenician. Just like Sardinia, where progressive waves of Phoenician settlers colonized an already Greek population, Cyprus would have been mostly Greek to a Bronze Age Israel, and only later being associated with Phoenicia.

The language of Cyprus likewise shifted with the varying waves of settlers. Two differing sets of systems offer us clues into the history of Cyprus: writing scripts and language dialects. Three major language branches are found on Cyprus; Eteocypriot - the pre-Indo-European language of Cypriots - in addition to Greek (both Arcado-Cypriot Greek and later Koine Greek), and the aforementioned later Phoenecian. While the history of Phoenecian starts during the Iron Age, during the Early Bronze Age - when Noah would have lived - the original Eteocypriot would have been under pressure by waves of Greek settlers. This Eteocypriot was written in the Cypriot syllabary. The Cypriot syllabary is descended from the Cypro-Minoan syllabary, itself an offshoot of Linear A, the script of the Minoans. We will see later how some scholars believe Eteocypriot is connected to Etruscan, while others believe it is linked to the Hurro-Urartian group previously mentioned in discussions of Madai.

During the Israelite period the main language was Arcadocypriot - a close relative of the Aeolic branch of Greek - however the island was trilingual, speaking the Eteocypriot language and Phoenecian. Remember that these Arcado-Cypriots were from the Mycenaean wave of settlers rather than the pre-Greek speakers, possibly Minoan, that inhabited Cyprus.

We must take a moment to discuss the ethnic makeup of Anatolia during the Bronze Age. There were four primary branches of Anatolian language: Hittite, Luwian, Lydian, and Palaic. Subsumed under the Luwic branch are the languages of Carian, Lycian, Milyan, Pisidian and Sidetic, each spoken in their respective regions. Luwian was spoken mainly in the south west, with Lydian was in the north west. Lydian is a later name used around the 8th century Palaic was spoken mainly in the north by the Pala - a potential etymological link with Paphlagonia, the name given to the region in later eras - and Hittite was used as the lingua franca in the Hittite empire centered in the east.

A detailed classification tree for the Anatolian language family helps explain why Anatolia experienced such upheaval during the Bronze Age. Each of these languages and people compete for control of Anatolia in conjunction with the Greeks, Egyptians, and Assyrians. Interestingly, in southern Pamphylia they spoke a derivative of Archadocypriotic Greek that experienced both syntax and phonological shifts influenced by Anatolian. With time, Greek replaced all of these “Anatolian” languages over the next millennium. However the native people and migratory groups that make their way into Anatolia never leave, they merely “Hellenize”, a term that becomes relevant after the conquests of Alexander in 334 BCE.

For our purposes in a Bronze Age context, it is clear that the island of Cyprus is a mixed identity of Greeks. Arcado Cypriot speakers inside the Aeolic branch of Greek and the previous Mycenaean Greeks who spoke a proto-Achaean form of Greek. As previously identified, Elishah would represent Arcado-Cypriot speaking Aeolians, while Kittim would represent the ‘pre Aeolian wave’ of Mycenean Greeks, and, possibly the entire wider Mycenaean world would be represented by Kittim. Fittingly, the Achaean dialect is the only one that would contain a Hebrew ‘כ’ (Koph), correlating on some level linguistically with Achaeans.

While traditional geographic designations for Kittim have associated them with Cyprus, the actual group meant has a much wider, expansive meaning that can be applied in other contexts. Rather than being a specific place, or location, Kittim is a group of people affiliated with the descendants of a supposed “Kitt” founder.

Hopefully you enjoyed this weeks post, and learned a bit of information about the region and the variants of Greek settlements. As usual, like, share, subscribe, comment and contact me for discussion regarding anything in this weeks section, especailly additional information since this could easily be expanded quite a bit more.