The beginning of the Late Bronze Age does not differ from the closing years of the previous period. Unrest, tension and anxiety mark all these years, probably because of some sort of engagement with the Hyksos who ruled Egypt at this time but were expelled from there in the mid-16th century. Soon afterwards peaceful conditions prevailed in the Eastern Mediterranean that witnessed a flowering of trade relations and the growing of urban centres. Chief among them was Enkomi the earliest predecessor of modern Famagusta, though several other harbour towns also sprung up along the southern coast of Cyprus.

Rich finds from this period testify to a vivid commerce with other countries. We have jewellery and other precious objects from the Aegean along with pottery that proves the close connections between the two areas, though finds coming from Near Eastern countries are also plentiful.
The years of peace that brought about such a flowering of culture and civilisation did not last. During these years Cyprus reached unprecedented heights in prosperity and it played a rather neutral role in the differences of her powerful neighbours.

In the second half of the 13th century, Cyprus suffered because of raids that were intensified and turned into devastating invasions. These were actually ethnic migrations, something like the ethnic migrations of the 4th-5th century AD Europe, that crashed in their way the Hittites, Alasia, Arzawa, Ugarit and other principalities in Syria and Palestine, only to be repulsed with great difficulty at the frontiers of Egypt by Pharaoh Ramses III in 1191 BC.

When those disastrous events came to an end, we observe the massive arrival of the Mycenaean Greeks as permanent settlers to Cyprus, a process that started around 1200 BC and lasted for more than a century. This migration is remembered in many sagas rehearsing how some of the Greek heroes that participated in the Trojan War came to settle in Cyprus.
The newcomers brought with them their language, their advanced technology and introduced a new outlook for visual arts.

Thus from c.1220 BC Cyprus has remained predominantly Greek in culture, language and population despite various influences resulting from successive conquests.