Salamis: Ohnefalsch-Richter for the British Museum

In 1882 Max Ohnefalsch-Richter exposed a Roman house and bath near the Forest-guard's house at Salamis, with a mosaic showing Orpheus attended by beasts^1,2. He worked for the British Museum, and the later account by Munro, Tubbs and Wroth says that Charles Thomas Newton arranged the excavation through Claude Delaval Cobham^1,3. Test excavations at Salamis are reported in 1879, before this work⁴.

The 1880 season was carried out north and west of the town¹. Karageorghis says Ohnefalsch-Richter also excavated in the necropolis⁵. The 1899 catalogue says an Enkomi tomb group was found about this time¹.

In a letter of 26 August 1882 Ohnefalsch-Richter described the bath as having a laconicum, bath-tub, caldarium, piscina and frigidarium, with suspensurae of brickwork². The mosaic lacked its central figure, and Myres and Ohnefalsch-Richter reported it as much damaged by exposure; Achilleos states that the floor mosaic is no longer visible because it was destroyed^1,6. He said his uncle, Julius Kühn, had sent him £40 for living expenses while he worked on the bath material². On 11 February 1882, digging water-holes for the Forest Department, he located the Zeus temenos, and he distinguished this prospecting from excavation⁷.

For the bath he prepared photographs, plans, sections, watercolours and a descriptive report. In a letter of 1912 to A. H. Smith, held in the British Museum's Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, he wrote that this material had not yet turned up and might be among boxes packed up in Berlin².