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Minor: large handled wine-jars (_amphorae_) are common: terra-cottas and jewellery also follow Greek styles: coloured stones are set in rings and ear-rings. Late or Graeco-Roman period (50 B.C.-A.D. 400): pottery is partly replaced by vessels of blown glass: clay lamps, red-glazed jugs, so called 'tear-bottles' of spindle-shapes, ear-rings of beads strung on wire, bronze rings and bracelets, circular mirrors without handles, and bronze coins are characteristics. Byzantine Age (after A.D. 400): Christian burial in surface graves supersedes the use of rock-hewn tombs: funerary equipment goes out of use, except a few personal ornaments, which are of mean appearance, and may bear Christian symbols. Domestic pottery is coarse, ungraceful, and frequently ribbed on the outside. Clay lamps have long nozzles, and Christian symbols. Glass becomes clumsy and less common; and glazed bowls and cups come into use. Occasional rich finds of silver plate (salvers, cups, spoons, &c.) and personal ornaments, have been made among Byzantine ruins. On mediaeval and later sites, various glazed fabrics of pottery are found, and occasionally examples of the glazed and painted jugs, plates, and tiles known to collectors as 'Rhodian' or 'Damascus' ware. Inscriptions occur on settlement-sites, in sanctuaries and associated with tombs: usually cut on slabs or blocks of soft limestone, though marble and other harder stones were used in Hellenistic and Roman times. Besides the ordinary Greek (see Illustration IV), and Roman alphabets the Phoenician alphabet (see Illustrations X and XI) was in use at Kition (Larnaca), in the great sanctuaries at Idalion (Dali), and occasionally elsewhere; and from early times until the fourth century a syllabary peculiar to Cyprus, often very rudely hewn, in irregular lines, on ill-shaped blocks. Such 'Cypriote inscriptions' (see accompanying Illustration VII) are of great value and interest, and have been often overlooked among building material drawn from old sites. 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
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