Glossary Collecting and the antiquities trade
Department of Antiquities (Cyprus)
The government body responsible for the archaeology, museums and ancient monuments of Cyprus, created by the Antiquities Law of 1935.
The Department took over the powers of the old Cyprus Museum Committee. It licenses excavations, runs the Cyprus Museum and the district museums, protects monuments and, until 1996, issued export licences and supervised licensed dealers. Its first Director was J. R. Hilton, followed in 1936 by A. H. S. Megaw; Vassos Karageorghis led it from 1963 to 1989.
For collectors and museums the Department is the reference point for lawful export. Its archive of licences, lead export tags and the Cyprus Museum Sales Register allows it to confirm whether an object left the island legally, as described in Collecting Cypriot Antiquities Today. Since the Turkish invasion of 1974 it has had no presence in the occupied north.
Related terms
- Antiquities Law (Cyprus)
The Cypriot statute governing excavation, ownership, dealing and export of antiquities, first enacted in 1905 and recast in 1935.
- Export licence
An official permit allowing an antiquity to leave its country of origin; in Cyprus, issued by the Department of Antiquities from 1935.
- Lead export tag
A small lead seal wired to an antiquity by the Cypriot authorities to mark it as approved for lawful export.
- Licensed dealer
A trader authorised by the Cyprus Department of Antiquities to buy and sell antiquities, a lawful role from 1935 until dealing was banned in 1996.
Where it appears
- Petros Kolokasides: A Licensed Dealer in Nicosia
- Licensed Dealers and Registered Collections: The 1935 System and Its Record, to 1974
- Licensed Export from the Republic of Cyprus, 1974 to 1996
- Collecting under the Silent Accord, 1963 to 1973
- The 1974 Presumption: Why Cypriot Antiquities Are Treated as Guilty Until Proven Innocent
- Organised Cases in the South: Souskiou, the Limassol Ring of 2010, Peyia and Operation Pandora
- The Island Collections: Private Collections Formed on Cyprus and What Became of Them
- Church Art and Antiquities: Two Trades from the Occupied North
- Collections That Became Museums: Private Collections on Cyprus and Their Public Homes after 1974
- Opportunist Raids in the Occupied North, 1974 to 1977
- The Cyprus Museum Saleroom: The State's Own Sales of 'Duplicate' Antiquities, 1920s to 1991
- The Hadjiprodromou Collection: A Registered Famagusta Collection Looted after 1974
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