The pottery is red or black in colour, and the ornamentation of it consists of incised geometrical designs. Copper and bronze, where we find examples of these metals, do not appear to have been employed in the manufacture of ornaments or arrow-heads, but usually in making daggers. There is no indication anywhere of foreign influence, and yet Cyprus had already at this time entered into relations with the civilized nations of the continent.* According to Chaldaean tradition, it was conquered about the year 3800 B.C. by Sargon of Agade: without insisting upon the reality of this conquest, which in any case must have been ephemeral in its nature, there is reason to believe that the island was subjected from an early period to the influence of the various peoples which lived one after another on the slopes of the Lebanon. Popular legend attributes to King Kinyras and to the Giblites [i.e. the people of Byblos] the establishment of the first Phoenician colonies in the southern region of the island--one of them being at Paphos, where the worship of Adonis and Astarte continued to a very late date. The natives preserved their own language and customs, had their own chiefs, and maintained their national independence, while constrained to submit at the same time to the presence of Phoenician colonists or merchants on the coast, and in the neighbourhood of the mines in the mountains. The trading centres of these settlers--Kition, Amathus, Solius, Golgos, and Tamassos--were soon, however, converted into strongholds, which ensured to Phonicia the monopoly of the immense wealth contained in the island.** * An examination into the origin of the Cypriotes formed part of the original scheme of this work, together with that of the monuments of the various races scattered along the coast of Asia Minor and the islands of the AEgean; but I have been obliged to curtail it, in order to keep within the limits I had proscribed for myself, and I have merely epitomised, as briefly as possible, the results of the researches undertaken in those regions during the last few years. ** The Phoenician origin of these towns is proved by passages from classical writers. The date of the colonisation is uncertain, but with the knowledge we possess of the efficient vessels belonging to the various Phoenician towns, it would seem difficult not to allow that the coasts at least of Cyprus must have been partially occupied at the time of the Egyptian invasions.