Jacob Mattei

Jacob Mattei was the Prussian consul at Larnaca when the stele of Sargon II came out of the ground at Kition in the autumn of 1845. Merrillees gives his life: born at Larnaca in 1784, landowner, merchant and banker, married to Maria Rizzini (died 1836), and resident in the large house later occupied by the Larnaca Club¹. He was appointed Prussian consul in 1810, evidently on the death of his father Giovanni Maria, known as Marino, who had been consul of Ragusa and Prussia, and he was still in office in 1845 or 1846. His date of death is not recorded¹.

Ludwig Ross was on Cyprus from 16 February to 26 March 1845¹, and the stele was found after he had left. Berlin's accession entry records that it was bought at Ross's request from the intermediate owners, and Merrillees concludes that the information reached Ross by letter from Mattei and the Sardinian consul Marcello Cerruti, with a sketch by a lay brother of the Capuchin monastery¹. The owners first asked 2,000 to 3,000 talaris. A letter of Niven Kerr dated 4 May 1846 names Marino Mattei, the American consul and not Jacob's father of that name, as the owner, with his eldest son Cesare a possible co-owner¹. Merrillees says the stele was bought by the Prussian consul for 7,000 francs, while Berlin's records give 3,000 florins, or 2,844 thalers with transport. The British Museum had offered 20 pounds¹.

Merrillees adds that, apart from the stele, there is no record that Mattei helped himself to the island's antiquities¹. The stele is in Berlin.