John Thomson's photographs of Cyprus, 1878

Thirty-six negatives, wet collodion on glass, are catalogued as Cyprus, 1878. Thomson numbered the 1878 plates in two runs, 363 to 389 and 750 to 758, and wrote short captions and printing instructions on many of them ("To be reversed", "Not to be reversed", "If possible, dark shade on sky"). The first run follows his route through the towns and the country: Larnaca and its waterfront, the graveyard of St Lazarus, the walls and gates of Nicosia, the ruined churches, harbour and cathedral of Famagusta, Kyrenia and its harbour, the abbey at Bellapais, Limassol, rock-cut tombs at Paphos and the slopes of Troodos. The second run is of people: families at home in Lefka and elsewhere, women at a well, a bullock cart, a camel caravan and a seated portrait. The Wellcome catalogue dates the Cyprus plates to 1878; its general note on the Thomson negatives as a whole gives 1868 to 1872, the years of his work in Asia.

Each item here is one negative. Its first image is Wellcome's positive made from a scan of the glass plate, the second is the 1981 print, and the third shows the plate itself, photographed over light with its chipped edges and Thomson's number. In fourteen cases the 1981 print is the mirror image of the positive from the negative; which of the two shows the scene the right way round has not yet been checked against the places, and those items say so. One further negative, a group of monks on a loggia catalogued as "Cyprus, 1869" (Thomson negative 646), is held back until its place and date can be checked.

Wellcome publishes the negatives and the 1981 prints under the Public Domain Mark. Our English titles and captions describe what each photograph shows and give Thomson's own words beside them, as transcribed in the Wellcome catalogue. Which of these negatives were printed in Through Cyprus with the Camera has not yet been matched plate by plate; the book is listed in the document register.