Ludwig Ross

Ludwig Ross had left Cyprus months before the stele of Sargon II turned up at Kition, yet the Berlin museum bought it on his application. He lived from 1806 to 1859³. Before Cyprus he had been in Greece under the Bavarian court, where he directed antiquities and was professor at Athens⁹. He spent about five weeks on the island in 1845, and his account of it was published in 1852 in Reisen nach Kos, Halikarnassos, Rhodos und der Insel Cypern³.

Five weeks on the island

Merrillees dates the stay from 16 February to 26 March 1845⁴. Marangou writes instead of a stay from February to May⁹. Ross's own text has him landing at Larnaca on the evening of 16 February, and his Larnaca chapter is headed with the dates 6 to 8 and 19 to 24 March, so he came back to the town between excursions¹. The Prussian consul found him rooms at an inn¹.

Ross named the consular circle of Larnaca and said he owed much of his knowledge of the island to it: the Prussian consul Mattei and his brother, the Austrian vice-consul Caprara, the British consul Niven Kerr, the Sardinian consul Cerutti and the French consul de Fourcade¹. Merrillees identifies the Prussian consul as Jacob Mattei⁴. Cerutti lent him a manuscript map of the interior and a copy of Lusignan's Chorography, and went with him on his last excursion¹. Caprara showed him two Greek inscriptions at his country house and a Phoenician inscription in the church of St Antonios at Kellia. Ross asked the Prussian consul to buy that one from the bishop of Kition, without success¹. Niven Kerr reported to London in 1845 that Ross had "discovered many antiquities hitherto unknown" and believed that scientific excavation would be rewarded⁴.

Idalion, Kourion and the bronze from Pera

At Dali, the site of ancient Idalion, Ross found farmers breaking out foundation stones and turning up large numbers of small painted limestone statuettes, all female and holding a flower. He acquired a few for the Berlin museum and took them to be Phoenician, against those who called them Greek idols of Aphrodite^1,3. He wrote that Louis de Mas Latrie found further pieces there afterwards and took them to Paris. Merrillees notes that Mas Latrie reached Cyprus only later in 1845^1,4.

At Kouklia he visited the Spilaion tis Regainas, described its chambers and its inscribed door slab⁶. At Kourion he copied inscriptions, though Mitford judged his copies there less successful than those he made at Kition¹¹. Near Episkopi he took down what the villagers told him about a bronze statue found in a dry river bed and broken up for scrap, its head going to a European and, he guessed, to England. Ulbrich and Kiely call his report the only surviving account of how the Chatsworth Apollo was found^1,10.

The Sargon stele

The stele of Sargon II turned up in late autumn 1845 in a rubble heap at Kition, some months after Ross had left the island. Jacob Mattei and Cerutti wrote to him at Halle with a sketch. The register of the Vorderasiatisches Museum records that the stele was bought from its intermediate owners "auf Ross' Antrag", on Ross's application⁴. Berlin's records give a price of 3,000 florins, or 2,844 thalers with transport. Merrillees also cites a figure of 7,000 francs paid by the Prussian consul⁴. Recke describes Ross as Berlin's agent in the matter⁵. In a footnote Ross himself wrote that it was found a few months after his departure and bought for the Berlin museum¹.

The objects after 1845

Berlin held several of Ross's Idalion statuettes by 1846, when Gerhard published two of them³. After Ross's death in 1859 further pieces reached the museum from his estate, among them the torso Sk. 508, the Kition kouros head M.I.7521 and an alabaster triad numbered 7516³. Recke says he gave a limestone head from Idalion to Halle in 1851⁵. Two gems said to be Cypriot, from the Ross collection at Halle, went to the Hermitage in 1865¹³.