George Greaves

In the second half of August 1878, Alessandro Palma di Cesnola called at the camp at Nicosia to ask permission to excavate. Garnet Wolseley later wrote that "the Secretary to the Government, Colonel Greaves" told him that all excavating was positively forbidden¹. Stanley-Price calls Greaves the Chief Secretary and counts him among the officers Wolseley brought from Ashanti¹.

Cesnola dug at Enkomi regardless. On an informant's report Greaves ordered the Larnaca police commandant, Lt E. Spencer, to go to Enkomi with three policemen, charge Cesnola under the Turkish antiquities law and bring the finds to Larnaca. Spencer seized pottery and glass on 4 October 1878¹. When Commissioner White asked for authority to arrest Cesnola, Greaves replied on the High Commissioner's behalf that White should tell Cesnola he had broken the law, warn him of imprisonment if he repeated it, and seize the objects¹.

Cesnola, advised by William Hepworth Dixon, refused to hand over the antiquities and complained to Beirut. Stanley-Price writes that it was Greaves "who seems to have taken the decision" to proceed: he wrote that Cesnola be summoned before the Medjlis Davi court at Larnaca under Turkish law, with the sentence referred to him before it was carried out¹. Cesnola was convicted there¹.

Greaves was born in 1831 and died in 1922. His full name was George Richards Greaves, and he was later Administrator of Cyprus in 1879 and Adjutant-General in India².