Cyprus is a copper-producing island, and from the time when metal first began to be used in the Chalcolithic period, Cypriots developed great skill in the kinds of increasingly sophisticated pyrotechnologies which could be used to impressive effect in precision-control of the firing of certain sorts of pottery.

The effects of such sophistication first become clear in the Red Polished and Black Polished wares of the Cypriot Early Bronze Age, but are also apparent in a long series of bichrome wares (pots painted with two distinct colours), such as the bichrome pottery and figurines of the Cypro-Archaic period (see AN1967.1088, AN1885.366, AN.C.267, AN1974.349).