Luke Zenon Pierides

In March 1922, on a railway station in Serbia, a stranger told the Swedish archaeologist Axel W. Persson that he was mad about archaeology, borrowed five pounds from him, then five more, and urged him to dig on Cyprus. The stranger was Luke Zenon Pierides of Larnaca, and the dig became the Swedish Cyprus Expedition^1,7.

Pierides was born in 1865, the elder of the two sons of Zeno D. Pierides and a grandson of Demetrios Pierides. His younger brother was Demetrios Z. Pierides (1870-1943). V. Karageorghis wrote that Luke "proved a worthy successor to his art-loving grandfather" and "considerably increased his family's archaeological collection" with Neolithic tools, Chalcolithic idols, Early and Late Bronze Age pottery, Cypro-Classical and Hellenistic vases, Attic pottery and Roman terra sigillata, and what he called a unique group of Cypro-Archaic I "free-field" jugs². The Greek text of the 1985 catalogue of the Pierides Foundation Museum likewise credits "Loukis Pierides (1865-1933)" with adding painted-style vases³. After his death his brother Demetrios kept the collection and passed it to his own son, Zeno D. Pierides (1900-1967)².

Consul at Larnaca

Karageorghis gives him as consul for Sweden and as vice-consul, then consul, for Germany from 1911 to 1933². The London Gazette index for 1912 lists "L. Z. Pierides, at Larnaca, Consul for Germany"¹⁹. In 1922 he told Persson that he was the Swedish consul and that his father had held the post before him¹. Karageorghis adds that Persson doubted the man on the platform was really a consul, though he was¹⁰.

The Swedish expedition

Persson's own account, translated by C.-G. Styrenius, says an official invitation from the Archaeological Council in Cyprus followed within a fortnight, and that letters from Larnaca arrived almost as often. A freight company's letter from Alexandria reported 350 kg of Cypriot antiquities shipped to Sweden for the Crown Prince. Persson closed the story with the remark "High interest on the small loan"⁷. When Einar Gjerstad reached Larnaca in October 1923, Pierides "received us with open arms" and, by Gjerstad's account, supported him generously for sixteen months^1,7.

The expedition needed a change in the law. Gjerstad told Pierides that the dig could not go ahead unless the excavator could keep part of the finds, and Pierides took up the problem⁷. Gjerstad recalled that Pierides, as a member of the Legislative Council, introduced the law that allowed the Cyprus Museum to cede part of the finds¹. T. Kiely writes that the amendment was initiated at the request of "Loukos Pierides on behalf of Einar Gjerstad and his colleagues"¹³, and N. Stanley-Price cites a letter from Pierides of 28 March 1925 to the Private Secretary proposing one¹². Stylianou-Lambert and Bounia describe the newspaper Isotita, which he funded, printing articles against the 1905 law in March 1926 and again six months later. The Swedes wrote to Ronald Storrs on 13 October 1926, and Storrs, as president of the Museum Committee, asked it to read the law broadly. They call Pierides, a Committee member, "equally instrumental", and give the 1927 amendment as sending 65 per cent of the finds to Sweden⁴.

Gjerstad also records Pierides in the field. He went with Antonios Papapetrou to Karavostasi in the first days of the expedition to obtain the landowners' consent for the dig at Soli, and he attended a meeting with villagers at Lapithos in 1927^1,9. He also pointed out Tooulis Svidos, who was taken on as the expedition's chauffeur¹. The first volume of the expedition's final publication, issued in 1934, mourns "the late Swedish Consul" for his valuable assistance⁶.

Gifts, a permit and a suspicion

Pierides gave the Crown Prince, later Gustaf VI Adolf, 130 Cypriot vases in 1925. Most passed in 1926 to the Museum of National Antiquities and later to the Medelhavsmuseet in Stockholm⁸. He presented a vase said to come from the Vounous cemetery to the Cyprus Museum¹⁵, and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, holds a Late Cypriot II cylinder seal with an ingot and a four-sign Cypro-Minoan inscription labelled "Presented by L. Pierides, 1933" (AN1933.1096), which may be his gift¹⁷.

Stanley-Price reports that in 1925 Pierides excavated near Sinda under a personal permit that entitled him to a share of the finds¹². The same article records a suspicion from the spring of 1929. The Acting Governor had a report that Americans of the Cyprus Mines Corporation were exporting antiquities, and Rupert Gunnis was reported as saying that Pierides "may have been one of those helping the Americans". It was also claimed that he bought for the Museum Committee with the pieces destined for his own collection. Menelaos Markides, questioned, said that no Committee member had recently been authorised to buy for it¹². No finding on either claim is recorded.

Gjerstad's portrait of Larnaca in the 1920s calls it "the city of Pierides" and describes him showing visitors the collection and giving away "the best he has"¹. The Cyprus Museum's annual report for 1933 recorded his death as that of "a valued Member of the Museum Committee"¹⁴. Gjerstad dedicated Ages and Days in Cyprus to his memory¹.