The Whole Island before 1974
For more than a century before the Turkish invasion of 1974, Cypriot antiquities left the island in very large numbers and, for the most part, lawfully: under Ottoman firmans, through the division of finds between excavators and the state, across the counter of the Cyprus Museum's saleroom, and under licences issued to dealers and collectors. Illicit digging went on through the same years, mostly by villagers opening tombs for a few shillings or for a local buyer. The entries in this part of the section set the two side by side, period by period.
How to use these entries
The entries are in three groups, by period. Ottoman Cyprus covers village tomb-digging before 1878 and the firmans and divisions of finds under which Cesnola, Lang and the consuls exported. British Cyprus covers illicit digging under colonial rule, the Antiquities Laws of 1905 and 1935, and the Cyprus Museum's saleroom. The Republic covers the years 1963 to 1973, when the Department of Antiquities let private collections form and registered them, the licensed dealers and registered collections, and the island collections themselves and where they are now.
Each looting entry is paired with the lawful channel of the same years, and the pairs are linked both ways. The laws are summarised in sequence, from the firmans to the end of licensed export in 1996, in the legal export of Cypriot antiquities; the numbers that left through each channel are in how many Cypriot antiquities left lawfully. What happened after the invasion is covered in the occupied north after 1974.
Ottoman Cyprus
Tomb-Digging in Ottoman Cyprus, 1860s to 1878
How villagers of Dali and other places dug Cypriot tombs for wages and piece rates before 1878, who...
Firmans and Partage: The Lawful Export of Antiquities from Ottoman Cyprus, 1860s to 1905
How Cypriot antiquities lawfully left the island under Ottoman firmans, landowners' rights, the...
British Cyprus, 1878 to 1960
Illicit Digging under British Rule, 1878 to 1960
Village tomb-digging in Cyprus under British administration and colonial rule: Markides's campaign...
The Antiquities Laws of 1905 and 1935
The two colonial statutes that governed Cypriot antiquities from 1905 to independence: state...
The Cyprus Museum Saleroom: The State's Own Sales of 'Duplicate' Antiquities, 1920s to 1991
How the Cyprus Museum sold antiquities from its own stock as 'duplicates' from the 1920s until the...
The Republic, 1960 to 1974
Collecting under the Silent Accord, 1963 to 1973
How the island's largest private collections of Cypriot antiquities were formed in 1963 to 1973...
Licensed Dealers and Registered Collections: The 1935 System and Its Record, to 1974
How the Antiquities Law of 1935 made dealing in antiquities a licensed trade and private collecting...
The Island Collections: Private Collections Formed on Cyprus and What Became of Them
The private collections of Cypriot antiquities formed on the island before 1974, from the Pierides...
