In the Epilogue Christoforou offers an impressionistic essay on encounters with ancient Greek epic in modern Greek lands. In an alternative, personal perspective on the political account provided in Hanink’s chapter, he explores the problematic ownership of the past in Greece and how the central place held by Greek antiquity, and in particular epic, in the construction of western civilisation has created a strange distance between Greeks and the Greek past and its literature. Reflecting on his own experience as a Grecophone classicist, Christoforou shows how the story of Greekness and epic is now played out in the background of Greeks performing their Hellenicity in a world that does not always trust their inheritance.

An investigation of the Luvo-Hittite dammara- religious functionaries (male and female) and the borrowing of the term into Ahhiyawan (Ur-Aeolian) and, thence, European Mycenaean cult vocabulary as dumartes and its variant damartes (a scribal borrowing), and an exploration of the Anatolian source of the theonym Artemis. The intersection of both the cult title and divine name with Mycenaean dialect variation is carefully examined.

The investigation of Aeolian foundation myths continues in this chapter, with examination of traditions of the founding of Boeotian Thebes. Ancestral Indo-European tradition is again evident, as is an Anatolian stratum, one which foregrounds technological expertise of Asian origin.

After looking at the Mediterranean as a zone characterized by the movement of goods, people and ideas, this chapter examines the sea as the element from which hybrids arise, such as Skylla, Nereus, the Nereids and monsters of Hesiod’s Theogony. These hybrids give expression to the anxieties of Greek speakers on the move. Contact zones like Sicily stimulated a powerful response from Greek speakers, who were constantly faced with other people, other tongues and other habits. Hybridity emerges as a useful mechanism for envisaging otherness and rendering it manageable, either as monstrous threat or as something in a more muted register: similar, yet at the same time different. It is this polarity of similarity and difference that is the pendulum swinging through Archaic Greek culture. Two places of particularly rich cultural encounters, Naukratis and Samos, illustrate how the categories of exotic and hybrid overlap. Even more complicated is Cyprus, demonstrating the most intense cultural layering in the eastern Mediterranean. Here where EteoCypriots, Mycenaean Greeks, Assyrians and Phoenicians all mingle, hybridity was a recurring feature of the island’s culture.

This chapter offers a snapshot of detente in a downward spiral, illustrating just how fragile it ultimately proved to be, how susceptible it was to the logic of superpower rivalry, and how utterly dependent it was on domestic variables – especially in the United States. With Nixon's resignation in August 1974, detente – never stable – began to unravel. Crises in Cyprus and Africa, as well as the passage of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which effectively denied the Soviet Union its Most Favored Nation status and further dampened the already dim prospects for Soviet–American trade, aggravated tensions between Moscow and Washington. Even the successful conclusion of the Helsinki Conference in the summer of 1975 failed to restore trust between the superpowers. Brezhnev's physical and mental decline contributed to a sense of paralysis in Soviet foreign policy. The Cold War returned by default.

The epigraphic documentation in the Phoenician language of the island of Cyprus makes it possible to approach the exploration of the semantic field of the force (’z) in the conceptual universe of the Phoenicians. Gods ‘of strength’ appear in inscriptions commemorating victories, both at Kition and at Larnaka-tis-Lapithou. Baal and Anat are discussed: the profession of war is not a male prerogative in the world of the gods. Strength is also present in the world of men: anthroponomy conceals a few names, albeit not many, constructed using the root ‘zz ‘to be strong’. At the same time Anat, Resheph, Baal and Mikal, gods present in the Phoenician context of Cyprus with also (but not only) warlike attributes, are implicated in the formation of anthroponyms, most of the time without reference to weapons and shields, if they are only those who serve their worshippers to face the daily battles from the delicate moment of birth onwards.

The chapter describes the main nature conservation challenges in Cyprus, its main policy responses and actions, and their achievements and lessons, primarily over the last 40 years. This covers the country’s natural characteristics, habitats and species of particular importance; the status of nature and main pressures affecting it; nature conservation policies (including biodiversity strategies), legislation, governance and key actors; species measures (e.g. relating to the killing of songbirds, and the conservation of sea turtles); protected areas and networks; general conservation measures (e.g. development planning and impact assessment, and invasive alien species); nature conservation costs and funding sources; and biodiversity monitoring. Likely future developments are also identified. Conclusions are drawn on what measures have been most effective and why, and what is needed to improve the implementation of existing measures and achieve future nature conservation goals.

Chapter 5 argues that the UN peacekeepers’ efforts to install stability in Cyprus forged a political environment of stagnation, fostering an entrenchment of hostilities between the divided communities. Once on the ground, peacekeepers improvised and favoured palliative solutions, so as to establish stability as quickly as possible, establishing dependence on external sources of relief and increasing displaced populations’ vulnerability to political instrumentalisation. The mission also expanded armed peacekeeping functions to recruit a UNFICYP mediator. However, the Turkish government’s controversial response to the UN mediator’s report exposed the extent of the UN’s powerlessness in the face of member-state criticism. The repercussions of the second mediator’s report highlighted the stagnation of the Cyprus mission and ignited internal discussions about the damage of the mission’s presence and mandate. It also demonstrated the incompatibility of functioning as an active military participant on the ground whilst simultaneously leading diplomatic negotiations for the resolution of the conflict. By 1971, the UN leadership and contributing nations openly questioned the future role of the UN in international conflict response following the organisation’s experience in Cyprus.

Chapter 3 explores the social conditions and normative constraints that influence the achievements that can be obtained through partition. The chapter’s main argument is that although novel ideas for “homogenizing” territories may arise, a reasonable theory for peace must assume that forcible transfers of population in any form are prohibited, and consequently that demographically homogenous territories are unattainable. By looking at the social realities in the four cases of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, and Israel–Palestine, the chapter illustrates that in most actual cases of ethno-national conflict, partition does not offer a viable course of action, if the goal is the creation of ethnically homogenous territories that can become “defensible enclaves” or “true” nation-states. Even in those cases where territorial partition make sense – as in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, in postdivision Cyprus, or in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the ethnic cleansing – peace must be attained not on the basis of ethnically homogenous nation-states, but rather on the basis of ethnically heterogenous territories and states. Thus, the chapter concludes that while territorial partition may be considered as one tool for peacemaking in ethno-national conflicts, its limitations must be recognized, and attained with other policies for accommodating ethno-national diversity.

Peacemaking practice shows that national minorities are aware of the shortcomings of liberal democracy and human rights to secure their fundamental interests, and when they come to the negotiating table their focal points are not bills of rights, but rather inclusive political institutions. This political inclusivity often involves the use of power-sharing democracy, a political framework that intentionally accommodates competing ethno-national groups within the state’s governing structures. Many experts, nongovernmental organizations, scholars, and policymakers have also recommended power-sharing as the more adequate institutional design for such places. This chapter evaluates democratic power-sharing vis-è-vis the more common model of majoritarian democracy to support the argument that a revision of our taken-for-granted assumptions about what “proper” democracy looks like is needed. To illustrate the general observations, the chapter reviews the use of power-sharing systems in Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Northern Ireland.

Chapter 2 starts with an overview of the modern phenomena of ethnicity, nationalism, and ethno-national conflicts, and about the probable causes and background conditions that provide fertile ground for their outbreak, as these understandings are essential for evaluating the prevailing theoretical assumptions about justice and democracy in places of ethno-national conflict. To deepen the understanding of the sociology of ethno-national conflicts, the chapter introduces the four conflicts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, and Israel–Palestine. This chapter singles out political exclusion, the struggle over public goods of the nation-state, and group inequalities along ethno-national lines as leading factors that explain the outbreak of violent conflicts.