Cyprus possesses in the Classical Syllabary a unique system of writing. Except for the Phoenician alphabet used by the Semitic element in the island's population, and for the Greek alphabet on certain coins and in the rare epitaphs of foreigners, the syllabary was in almost exclusive use throughout the Archaic and Classical periods. With two early exceptions (Marium, Golgi), only in the Hellenistic period do ‘digraphic’ inscriptions (with the same or a similar text in both alphabet and syllabary) occur, notably at Paphus and Soli, whose kings were among the earliest Cypriot allies of Ptolemy Soter. The syllabary, in the main or ‘Common’ variant and in the South-Western or ‘Paphian’ repertory, was the vehicle of the Cypriot dialect, the eastern branch of the Arcado-Cypriot group; in some parts of the island, especially at Amathus, the syllabary was also used for the still undeciphered ‘Eteo-Cypriot’ language. The Cypriot dialect and the syllabary are complementary, and (save for Eteo-Cypriot) they are not to be found the one without the other.

Decipherment, based on the Phoenician bilingual of Idalium (ICS no. 220) was ingeniously initiated in 1871 by George Smith, later assisted by S. Birch, and rapidly advanced by Brandis, M. Schmidt, Deecke and Siegismund. By 1876, the Bronze Tablet of Idalium (ICS no. 217; see Plates Volume), complete and very legible, with more than 1,000 signs, had received an established alphabetic text and full commentary, and it remains to this day without a rival as a source of knowledge alike of the dialect and of syllabic usage.

Greek-Egyptian relations before Psammetichus I

Greeks arrived to settle in Egypt in the reign of Psammetichus I (664–610 B.C.). For the period that follows, Herodotus found that Egyptian and non-Egyptian information could be combined (II. 147). Thanks to Greek settlers mingling with the Egyptians, knowledge was now accurate (II. 154). Significantly, no Greek pottery datable to the period between Mycenaean times and 664 B.C. has so far been found in Egypt. Egyptian trinkets, on the other hand, were reaching the Greek world in the eighth century, and a bronze Egyptian jug at Lefkandi in Euboea would seem to date back as far as the ninth. These could have arrived by way of Phoenicia or Cyprus.

Some contact then, even if indirect, there must have been in the disturbed century before Psammetichus I. The Greeks retained some recollection of the Egyptian history of this time. We have seen how the king of Ethiopia and Egypt, who must have been Shabako (c. 716–c. 702 B.C.) in 711 surrendered Yamani of Ashdod, possibly a Greek (above, p. 16). This ‘Sabakōs’ is an historical figure for Herodotus (II. 137, 139) who in the fifth century could get a fair amount of information about the 25th (Nubian or Kushite) dynasty. Shabako's enemy was the delta king Bakenrenef son of Tefnakhte (c. 720–715 ?), whom he eventually captured and burnt alive. Bakenrenef, as Bocchoris, was to figure in Greek imagination, though Herodotus does not mention him. He is celebrated as a sagacious lawgiver in the Egyptian account of Diodorus (I. 45, 65, 79, 94) which derives from earlier Greek writing – probably in large measure from Hecataeus of Abdera, c. 300 B.C.