Kleanthis Pierides

In February 1910, Max Ohnefalsch-Richter arrived in Cyprus and learned from "a Limassol trader, Kleanthis Pierides, antiquities lover" that clandestine diggers were gathering statuettes and inscribed stones in the Rantidi forest east of Kouklia¹. Magda Ohnefalsch-Richter's memoir, as Masson quotes it, calls him a wholesaler in carobs and antiquities¹. Tatton-Brown describes him as related to the Larnaca Pierides family³. On 8 and 9 May 1910 he was one of five Cypriots, with Michailis and Evelthon Apostolides, who went with Ohnefalsch-Richter and Kurt Koritzky to Rantidi, where some of the diggers were present¹.

Two letters he wrote in French to Ohnefalsch-Richter, dated 8 and 15 March 1910, describe secret digging at a "bomos" near the monastery of Sphalangiotissa. He reported that men had been seen and taken to court, that a colossal statue had been confiscated, that peasants had hidden its bearded head, and that about twenty further pieces were shown at a house². He had offered the Berlin Museum a stone statuette about 20 inches high from the sanctuary, and Dr Zahn negotiated with him. Berlin also asked about a big-breasted "Artemis", for which he asked 120 pounds². The outcome of both offers is not recorded.

Tatton-Brown's list of correspondence shows letters from him between 1906 and 1914 and British Museum entries of 1909 under his name³.