Clearance and early diggingOttoman-era and private
Pyla-Stavros: Robert Hamilton Lang's excavations
1868 · Pyla-Stavros
Also known as Lang's excavation of the Pyla sanctuary
Robert Hamilton Lang's 1868 discovery of a sanctuary at Pyla, devoted principally to Apollo, and the dispersal of its sculptures to museums in Vienna, London, Paris and New York.
Map of Cyprus
Where the work took place
- Ground above 200, 500, 1,000 m
Site
- 1Pyla-Stavros (approx.)
The project
In 1868 Robert Hamilton Lang discovered a sanctuary at Pyla devoted principally to Apollo1. Hermary and Mertens base the identification on the dedications: four inscriptions, two syllabic and two alphabetic, call the god Mag(e)irios, and one calls him Lakeutes1. Lang did not record the precise location of the sanctuary1.
Lang's finds included statuettes and heads of Artemis and two headless statues of "sacrificers"1. A larger-than-life limestone votive statue, described in the Vienna catalogue as a priest (cat. no. 76), was found in the sanctuary in 1868; the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna acquired it in 1872 from Rear Admiral Millosich2. Seipel and colleagues state that Lang sold many more limestone sculptures to the British Museum in London in 18722. Caubet and colleagues state that sculptures Lang discovered at Pyla, which they take as evidence for a cult of Artemis, entered the Louvre in 18723.
Hermary and Mertens state that Lang gave Cesnola a number of sculptures from his excavations, perhaps in exchange for objects from Golgoi that interested him1. Three of the Artemis figures are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as Cat. 361, 362 and 3631. Cesnola's Descriptive Atlas of 1885 lists a headless male figure, No. 915, from the ruins of an unknown temple at Pyla, discovered by Mr. R. H. Lang4. Hermary and Mertens call the Pyla sanctuary an important point of comparison for the sanctuary at Golgoi-Ayios Photos1.
Directors and team
Directed by
References
- 1.Antoine Hermary, Joan R. Mertens, 2014, The Cesnola Collection of Cypriot Art: Stone Sculpture, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- 2.Alfred Bernhard-Walcher, Günther Dembski, Kurt Gschwantler, Vassos Karageorghis, 1999, Die Sammlung zyprischer Antiken im Kunsthistorischen Museum / The Collection of Cypriote Antiquities in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien.
- 3.A. Caubet, A. Hermary, V. Karageorghis, 1992, Art antique de Chypre au Musée du Louvre: du Chalcolithique à l'époque romaine.
- 4.Luigi Palma di Cesnola, 1885, A Descriptive Atlas of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriote Antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Vol. 1.
Sources
- 1.Studies in Cypriote Archaeology, p. 147.
- 2.La coroplastie chypriote archaïque. Identités culturelles et politiques à l'époque des royaumes, p. 60.
- 3.Les antiquités chypriotes et les Musées. Expositions 2012, p. 461.
- 4.Conférence inaugurale : Larnaca et Kition aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, p. 42.
- 5.The Cesnola Collection of Cypriot Art: Stone Sculpture, p. 19.
- 6.Die Sammlung zyprischer Antiken im Kunsthistorischen Museum / The Collection of Cypriote Antiquities in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, p. 40.
- 7.Ancient Art from Cyprus: The Cesnola Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- 8.Portrait ou réminiscence ? La tête féminine Louvre MNB 757, p. 13.
- 9.Art antique de Chypre au Musée du Louvre: du Chalcolithique à l'époque romaine, p. 9.
- 10.A Descriptive Atlas of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriote Antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Vol. 1.