Cyprus between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (ca. 600–800)

Research on early medieval Cyprus has focused on the late antique ‘golden age’ (late fourth/early fifth to seventh century) and the so-called Byzantine ‘reconquista’ (post-965 AD) while overlooking the intervening period. This phase was characterized, supposedly, by the division of the political sovereignty between the Umayyads and the Byzantines, bringing about the social and demographic dislocation of the population of the island. This book proposes a different story of continuities and slow transformations in the fate of Cyprus between the late sixth and the early ninth centuries.