George Henry Boker

George Henry Boker (1823-1890) was the American Minister in Constantinople when Luigi Palma di Cesnola dug in Cyprus. Stanley-Price says Boker obtained a firman for Cesnola's digging and helped him export his finds, and that Cesnola gave him gold trinkets and invited him and his wife to the island¹. Cesnola's book of 1878 thanks "the Hon. George H. Boker" and says Boker had to "pinch the tail of the American eagle" to make the Turks comply. Cesnola also quotes Boker, on sending a firman renewal, writing that Cesnola would be "sinking the island" with his holes³.

Cesnola gives a further account in a letter printed in Life and Deeds. After 1873, he says, he agreed with "the American Minister M. Boker" to give many duplicates to the Constantinople museum in return for a new firman. The Porte then sent Dr Philipp Dethier, who left Larnaca with 88 boxes; Cesnola says Boker, "furious", confiscated them in Constantinople and agreed to return them only if the Porte sent Cesnola a letter of gratitude and renewed his firman⁴. This account comes from Cesnola alone.

Bonato reports that on 22 April 1875 Cesnola wrote to Melchior de Vogüé "on the invitation of M. Boker"². In December 1875 Cesnola wrote that Baraezi, second dragoman of the United States Legation, was highly thought of by Boker, and offered a 5% commission on a sale of the collection⁴. The thanks in the 1878 book name Boker with E. Joy Morris, McVeah and John H. Goodenow of the Legation⁴.