Government of Cyprus (British colonial administration)

Not a collecting body: through the Museum Committee it held the Government's share of excavated finds (one third under the 1874 law) and seized finds; these formed the Cyprus Museum collections. (1878-1960)

Tatton-Brown 2001

1. 23 July 1878
   Sir Garnet Wolseley arrives as first High Commissioner under the Convention of Defensive Alliance (4 June 1878); the Ottoman antiquities law then in force stays in force.

   Garnet Joseph WolseleyStanley-Price 2018Tatton-Brown 2001

2. August 1878
   Wolseley proclaims a ban on all excavations in Cyprus. Perrot, Scott-Stevenson and Baker are the contemporary witnesses; Stanley-Price cites Newton's July 1878 report to the British Museum Trustees (via the Foreign Office) as the probable prompt.

   Garnet Joseph WolseleyStanley-Price 2018Tatton-Brown 2001

3. October 1878
   Alessandro Palma di Cesnola is arrested at Enkomi and tried at Larnaca under Art. 7 of the 1874 Ottoman law: fined four liras (remitted by Wolseley) and his antiquities seized. Henry Brackenbury prosecuted; C. D. Cobham interpreted and translated the depositions.

   LarnacaHenry BrackenburyClaude Delaval CobhamGarnet Joseph WolseleyStanley-Price 2018Tatton-Brown 2001

4. 11 October 1878
   Wolseley proclaims that consular jurisdiction under Sublime Porte regulations no longer has effect in Cyprus.

   Garnet Joseph WolseleyStanley-Price 2018

5. 1880
   Excavations by Max Ohnefalsch-Richter for the Cyprus Government and the British Museum begin (September 1880), supervised by Larnaca's Commissioner Cobham; permits go to learned institutions such as the British Museum and South Kensington Museum.

   Max Ohnefalsch-RichterClaude Delaval CobhamTatton-Brown 2001Kiely & Fourrier 2012

6. 15 June 1882
   The Cyprus Museum is founded on a petition to High Commissioner Sir Robert Biddulph (signed by the Cadi, Archbishop and Mufti); a Museum Committee is named, Kitchener becomes Curator and Honorary Secretary. The Government gives only a room in the Government offices; the museum lives on subscriptions.

   NicosiaRobert BiddulphHerbert KitchenerTatton-Brown 2001

7. 1885
   Ohnefalsch-Richter (21 April request, one month, 'in the interest of diggings and Museum') is granted a multi-site permit at Polis, limited to four days per place, with a journal, catalogue and report required.

   PolisMax Ohnefalsch-RichterChilds et al. 2012

8. December 1885 – January 1886
   Watkins v. Warren: Charles Watkins sues the Government's Chief Secretary Falkland Warren over the Frangissa (Tamassos) excavation permit and finds. Watkins lost on final appeal (judgment 21 January 1886). Finds were divided in three under the 1874 law; Warren took his share to Canada (now Royal Ontario Museum).

   NicosiaFalkland WarrenCharles F. WatkinsMax Ohnefalsch-RichterMasson 1989

9. 25 February 1886
   Polis excavations begin with E. Foot as government overseer; they run to August 1886 (441 tombs in three necropoleis).

   PolisErnst FootMax Ohnefalsch-RichterChilds et al. 2012

10. 1886
    Cyprus pavilion at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, London, shows antiquities lent from the Museum collection; a number of items went missing and never returned.

    Kiely 2017Tatton-Brown 2001

11. 16 June 1887
    High Commissioner Sir Henry Bulwer, as ex officio President of the Museum Committee, minutes that private excavations serve speculation and commerce; permits will go only to foreign museums and recognised antiquarian institutions, with a share of finds. Under this policy the Cyprus Exploration Fund and the British Museum Turner Trust dig in the 1880s-90s.

    Henry Ernest Gascoyne BulwerTatton-Brown 2001

12. June 1889
    Museum Committee leases 7 Victoria Road, Nicosia, for the first purpose-rented Cyprus Museum (one year, 21 pounds).

    NicosiaTatton-Brown 2001

13. 1891
    Famagusta Stones Law, the first antiquities-protection law passed under British rule, forbids removal of stone from the ruined buildings of old Famagusta.

    Tatton-Brown 2001

14. 16 May 1891
    Cyprus Museum opens to the public for the first time, on the first Saturday of each month and some holidays.

    Tatton-Brown 2001

15. 1890s
    Ottoman Foreign Ministry asks that export of antiquities from Cyprus stop, citing the 1884 Ottoman law; High Commissioner Sir Walter Sendall replies that the 1884 law, passed after the occupation, does not apply to Cyprus (correspondence with Sir Austen Layard).

    Walter SendallTatton-Brown 2001

16. 30 June 1896
    Sendall enacts the law 'To Regulate and Place Upon a Better Footing the Cyprus Museum' (gazetted 3 July 1896); Art. 11(2) allows export only of objects already represented in the Museum. The Crown later disallowed it after opposition from the British Museum.

    Walter SendallMerrillees 2009Stanley-Price 2018

17. c. 1897
    First Lambousa silver treasure (found, by Merrillees 2005 as quoted, in 1897 near the Acheiropoietos monastery) leaves Cyprus (acquired by G. A. Mozeras at Larnaca, exported by the duc de Dino); the British Museum acquires most of it. Merrillees judges the removal irregular and probably illegal; no application for an export permit is on record.

    LambousaMerrillees 2009

18. 28 December 1898
    District Commissioner Tankerville Chamberlayne (Kyrenia) writes to the Chief Secretary about a peasant's find of silver plate, urging that the Government be given the first offer of purchase of antiquities.

    KyreniaTankerville James ChamberlayneFrank G. GlossopMerrillees 2009

19. 1902
    Second Lambousa treasure found by two quarrymen from Karavas; police confiscate a small part (now in the Cyprus Museum) and the rest is smuggled out; the seizure prompts an appeal against the Government's right of confiscation under the 1874 law.

    LambousaMerrillees 2009Stanley-Price 2018

20. 1905
    Antiquities Law 1905 declares all antiquities the property of the Government and bars export without permission; a Museum Committee is established under it.

    Stanley-Price 2018Merrillees 2005

21. 1908
    Cyprus Museum moves into its purpose-built building outside the Venetian walls in Nicosia (the Queen Victoria memorial building).

    NicosiaTatton-Brown 2001Merrillees 2005

22. 1909
    Wilfrid Jerome Farrell's confidential report for the British School at Athens, after a month in Cyprus, criticises enforcement of the 1905 law, the Curator Eustathios Constantinides and the Museum Committee; the BSA holds a conference in London on 14 September 1909. Kiely describes the 1909 reforms that followed, including the first professional Curator, Menelaos Markides.

    Wilfrid Jerome FarrellCharles Anthony King-HarmanEustathios ConstantinidesMenelaos MarkidesClaude Delaval CobhamMerrillees 2005Kiely 2017

23. 1910
    Kurt Koritzky's request (10 May 1910) to the High Commissioner for an excavation permit at Rantidi is followed by a permit to Robert Zahn (22 August 1910; dig 30 August to 7 October); neither dig was properly published.

    RantidiKurt KoritzkyRobert ZahnMax Ohnefalsch-RichterMasson 1985

24. 1913
    Museum Committee receives a Government grant for exploratory work on sites illustrating the main periods, supervised by J. L. Myres; High Commissioner Sir Hamilton Goold-Adams (himself holder of an excavator's licence) is thanked. In December Myres has Aphrodite's 'black stone' at Kouklia removed.

    Hamilton Goold-AdamsJohn Linton MyresMerrillees 2005Maier 1997

25. 3 March 1915
    Museum Committee records that a duplicate pair of earrings was presented to Lady Goold-Adams under section 42 of the 1905 law, in recognition of the High Commissioner's services.

    Hamilton Goold-AdamsMerrillees 2005

26. 1924–1925
    Cyprus takes part in the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley (1924 pavilion shared with Palestine; 1925 in the former Fiji building). Ancient pottery and figurines for the display were supplied by the dealer E. M. Jelajian; much of the pottery was afterwards bought by Henry Crowther for Leeds.

    WembleyWilliam BevanE. M. JelajianKiely 2017

27. 1927
    The 1905 law is amended so that the Swedish Cyprus Expedition can keep a significant share of its finds, at the request of Loukos Pierides on behalf of Gjerstad. The Tribute to Turkey is abolished the same year.

    Luke Zenon PieridesEinar Nilson GjerstadKiely 2017

28. 1927–1929
    Governor Ronald Storrs issues permits to the Swedish Cyprus Expedition: Lapithos (June 1927), Kition (March 1929) and, after a village priest hands a figurine to the Cyprus Museum in November 1929, Ayia Irini. Rupert Gunnis dug the first trial trench there.

    Ronald StorrsRupert Forbes GunnisEinar Nilson GjerstadHouby-Nielsen 2016

29. 1929
    Menelaos Markides retires from the Curatorship of the Cyprus Museum (Kiely: premature, ill health); Porphyrios Dikaios succeeds. Since 1914 the Museum has paid finders compensation for antiquities, and Storrs set aside more money for it.

    Menelaos MarkidesPorphyrios DikaiosRonald StorrsKiely 2017Houby-Nielsen 2016

30. 16 November 1932
    The Archaeological Joint Committee, meeting in London with a Colonial Office representative, proposes a Department of Antiquities for Cyprus.

    Charles PeersGeorge HillStanley-Price 2025

31. 1934
    Sir Charles Peers (monuments) and Sir George Hill (British Museum, museum and law) visit Cyprus; the Cyprus Committee under Viscount Mersey pays Peers's expenses after the Government declined; a Carnegie Corporation grant supports the Cyprus Museum.

    Charles PeersGeorge HillStanley-Price 2025

32. 1 January 1935
    Department of Antiquities comes into existence under its first Director, John Hilton (appointed 9 August 1934 at 600 pounds), combining the Cyprus Museum and the Curator of Ancient Monuments; George Jeffery retires and becomes honorary adviser; Gunnis is Inspector of Antiquities.

    John HiltonGeorge JefferyRupert Forbes GunnisPorphyrios DikaiosStanley-Price 2025

33. 30 December 1935
    The revised Antiquities Law is signed by the Governor (Bill gazetted 10 May 1935); it names a 'Director of Antiquities' but not a Department, and inserts the British Museum's right to be offered certain antiquities (removed by the 1964 amendment).

    Richmond PalmerGeorge HillStanley-Price 2025

34. 1935–1936
    Hilton is dismissed after 17 months on Governor Richmond Palmer's initiative, encouraged by Gunnis's opinions; the Colonial Office extended his tenure after many complaints, and A. H. S. Megaw replaced him.

    John HiltonRichmond PalmerRupert Forbes GunnisArthur Hubert Stanley MegawStanley-Price 2025

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