Presidential Palace tours in Nicosia show figurines returned from Munich in 2024

Members of the public toured the art and antiquities display at the Presidential Palace in Nicosia for the first time on 3 October, to mark Independence Day. The visits form a pilot of "Presidential Palace Open to Citizens", an initiative of the First Lady, Philippa Karsera Christodoulides, which the Presidency announced on 23 September.

The curators, Costas Mantzalos and Constantinos Kounnis, took three groups of 50 adults round "Cyprus: the World, the Place, the Word, the Matter". Paintings by Adamantios Diamantis, George Pol Georgiou, Telemachos Kanthos and Michael Kashalos hang beside six cases from the Department of Antiquities: picrolite cruciform figurines, a clay plank figure of about 2000 BCE, two Base Ring women of the 14th to 13th centuries BCE, Archaic limestone votaries from Lefkoniko, terracotta women holding birds from Arsos, figures playing what may be cymbals from Lapethos, and Classical and Hellenistic limestone heads, most from the Cyprus Museum. The plank figure and the Base Ring pair came back from Munich in 2024; the exhibition texts describe them as looted after the 1974 Turkish invasion and exported by the dealer Aydın Dikmen.

Diamantis also drew the vases, finds and tomb plans for Porphyrios Dikaios's report on the 1931–32 excavations at Vounous [1].

The next public visit is set for International Museum Day in May 2027, and the Presidency says more are being considered. Over-18s booked places on the first through the Deputy Ministry of Culture's website, in order of registration; information is on 22309530.