Abraami Charalambos

Abraami Charalambos, a stone-cutter of Dali, is the man Max Ohnefalsch-Richter credited with finding the Reshef-Apollo temenos at Idalion that Robert Hamilton Lang later excavated. Ohnefalsch-Richter called him "the very reliable Abraami Charalamba, a Daliot, the finder of H. Lang's Resef-Apollo temenos", and said he had used him repeatedly since 1883 as foreman and overseer alongside Gregori Antoniou¹. In a letter of 17 December 1888 he described him as a stone-cutter "when he is not employed in excavations" and as his foreman at Frangissa¹. Ohnefalsch-Richter marked on his plan of Idalion an ancient well or cistern near Abraami's house, filled with images⁴.

In August 1887 Ohnefalsch-Richter, with Edward Carletti, surveyed the sanctuary and sent Abraami and a man called Michaili to try the hill Muti tou Avrili, on the line of the fortifications³. In November 1888 a find of capitals was attributed to him, among them pieces now in Nicosia; Masson and Hermary call it clandestine. Ohnefalsch-Richter, writing to Bulwer on 12 February 1889, said Abraami would not have dug there had he not been employed by him^2,3.

In 1894, by Ohnefalsch-Richter's own account, Abraami, "already advanced in years", led his companions in secretly digging the first finds on the south edge of the acropolis and the votive stelai on the north edge. Capitals 8 to 11 of Masson and Hermary's list came from this digging; no. 8 was reportedly taken to the USA, and no. 9 entered the collection of Valentin Weisbach in Berlin and was given in 1898 to the Museum für Völkerkunde in Leipzig². Ohnefalsch-Richter photographed him at the end of that season steadying a sphinx-topped stele with Kostis Kafedschis and Loiso Anastasi².