Glossary Collecting and the antiquities trade
Lead export tag
Also called: lead seal, export bulla, lead export bullae
A small lead seal wired to an antiquity by the Cypriot authorities to mark it as approved for lawful export.
Objects sold by licensed dealers or from the Cyprus Museum's sale room left the island with a typed permit and a lead tag, or bulla, attached by wire, often through a handle. The tags survive on pieces still in circulation: a Cypro-Archaic barrel flask offered at auction in 2026 still had two lead export bullae on its handle.
A tag is strong evidence of lawful export in the decades before 1996, but it can come loose or be moved to another object, so on request the Department of Antiquities checks licence numbers against its own archive. A Bichrome bowl from the collection of the botanist Oleg Polunin, bought from Petros Kolokasides in the 1950s or 1960s, was confirmed this way (Collecting Cypriot Antiquities Today).
Related terms
- Export licence
An official permit allowing an antiquity to leave its country of origin; in Cyprus, issued by the Department of Antiquities from 1935.
- 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.
- Department of Antiquities (Cyprus)
The government body responsible for the archaeology, museums and ancient monuments of Cyprus, created by the Antiquities Law of 1935.