Johns Hopkins University

The Marburg Collection: 122 pieces (49 gold ornaments, 13 cylinder seals, 20 engraved gems and seals, 40 scarabs and small objects) given in 1900-1901 and apparently stolen around 1950; plus a Kourion figurine fragment deposited by the Youngs after their 1950s work. No published count of the present Cypriot holding was found. (1901)

Johnston 1901, p. 18Masson 1989, p. 31

1. 1900
   Theodore Marburg gave the university the collection of Cypriot antiquities he had obtained from Falkland Warren, the former Chief Secretary of Cyprus. A Baltimore daily (Baltimore Sun, 19 December 1900) printed a three-column description and Warren's own handwritten list; Masson says the Warren list begins with 35 gold ornaments, 17 engraved stones and seals and 21 scarabs. Warren's list is not the same as Johnston's count of 122.

   BaltimoreTheodore MarburgFalkland WarrenMasson 1989, p. 31Buchholz 2001, p. 211

2. 1901
   Christopher Johnston, Professor at Johns Hopkins, published a two-page note on the Marburg Collection: 122 pieces, dated by him c. 800-150 BC; he said he had not made a careful study and hoped to report more fully later. Masson notes that no later study appears to have been published.

   Christopher JohnstonJohnston 1901, p. 18-19Masson 1989, n. 19

3. c. 1950
   Masson reports, on the word of the curator Ellen D. Reeder (10 March 1989), that the Marburg Collection had disappeared from the museum, apparently stolen around 1950. His own inquiry in Baltimore had found nothing earlier.

   Ellen D. ReederMasson 1989, p. 31, n. 22

4. 1955
   J. H. Young and S. H. Young, working in Cyprus at Kourion, brought a sample fragment of a terracotta horseman to the Johns Hopkins University, with the permission of the Department of Antiquities, for chemical analysis of its pigments (Evans B. Reid, Department of Chemistry); local clay samples went to the Geology Department for micropetrographic examination. The fragment is said to be deposited at the university. Date is that of the publication.

   KourionJohn Howard YoungYoung & Young 1955

5. 1981–1982
   The 1982 season at the Archaic sanctuary of Apollo Hylates at Kourion under Diana Buitron (Walters Art Gallery) was sponsored by the Walters, the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins. The numismatist J. MacIsaac of Johns Hopkins dated the Kourion earthquake to 367-368 AD from the coins, for the first volume of the sanctuary publication.

   KourionDiana BuitronJ. MacIsaacKarageorghis 1982Karageorghis 1983

6. 1984
   E. Reeder-Williams published The Archaeological Collection of the Johns Hopkins University (1984), which, according to Masson and Buchholz, records the Marburg Collection (not seen; cited second-hand).

   Ellen D. ReederMasson 1989, n. 20Buchholz 2001, p. 211

• Marburg Collection of Cypriote Antiquities: 122 pieces (gold ornaments including 42 earrings, 13 cylinder seals, gems, scarabs); apparently stolen c. 1950

  from Cyprus (Warren excavations and purchases; Paphos district, Larnaca, Paraskevi, Kythrea named for some cylinders)via Theodore Marburg1900Johnston 1901, p. 18Masson 1989, p. 31-32