Charles Hercules Read

In early July 1898 Charles Hercules Read, second Keeper of British and Medieval Antiquities at the British Museum from 1896 to 1921³, examined a hoard of Byzantine silver that the duc de Dino had brought to London. The duc had acquired it from George Athanasios Mozeras of Larnaca¹. Read asked the baron de Cosson, whom he called an old friend, to find out the price. He noted that the duc had "bought them in Cyprus for £150 and asks £1,000"; an independent valuation put the value at £400, and after some duplicate spoons were withdrawn the price was £500¹. On 26 July 1898 Read wrote to the duc that the Trustees would buy once funds allowed. The duc's letter of 20 April 1899 reports that the cheque had arrived, and the pieces were registered as 1899,4-25¹. Ormonde Maddock Dalton, an Assistant under Read, presented the treasure to the Society of Antiquaries in 1900¹. R. S. Merrillees points out that Read's part in the purchase appears neither in the 1921 tribute volume nor in his obituaries¹, and he judges the removal of the hoard from Cyprus to have been irregular and illegal¹.

According to the 2012 catalogue of the Department of Antiquities, Read argued after the Cyprus antiquities law of 1905 that excavators should receive a share of finds "on a generous scale". He proposed dividing finds three ways, between the Cyprus Museum, the excavator and a sale for the Museum's funds, with the British Museum given first call on whatever was sold. He also held that smuggled antiquities were more likely to end up in Europe or the United States than in England². He was born in Gillingham in 1857 and died at Rapallo in 1929⁴.