Ancient CyprusAncient Cyprus

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Photographs and drawings from the archives

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The Archive gathers photographs, drawings, plans, prints and paintings on the archaeology of Cyprus from the archives that hold them: the Swedish Cyprus Expedition’s negatives in Stockholm, the French missions’ records of Salamis, Kition and Enkomi, John Thomson’s photographs of 1878, the Colonial Office’s prints, the photographic archive of the Centre of Visual Arts and Research, and more.

Every item has its own page: the holder’s record in the language it was written in, an English caption, its date and how it is known, the sites, tombs and people it shows, where it was published, and the licence under which it may be reused. The field diaries, notebooks and excavation papers are read page by page beside their scans.

items, each with a page
40,283
items, each with a page
collections
17
collections
holding institutions
11
holding institutions
diaries, notebooks and papers
1,377
diaries, notebooks and papers
pages transcribed
52,289
pages transcribed
decades with dated items, 1720s–2020s
24
decades with dated items, 1720s–2020s
Enter the ArchiveThe diaries and papersObjects across the collections
One picture from each of 9 collections. Each opens its record, with its holder and credit.

What is in it

The collections, holder by holder

Each collection comes from one holder and keeps that holder’s numbers, records and licence: 17 collections from 11 institutions, largest first. Each links to its pages here, to its rights and citation page, and to the holder’s own catalogue.

By kind

Every item in every collection, by what it is.

  • Object photographs15,202
  • Field photographs10,612
  • Object cards8,277
  • Photographs2,113
  • Drawings1,917
  • Plans864
  • Letters581
  • Documents348
  • Manuscripts313
  • Paintings32
  • Prints14
  • Maps10

Linked to the rest of the site

Items whose record names a site, a tomb or a person, or a publication that prints them, each linked to its page.

  • With an English caption40,283
  • With the holder's own words36,712
  • Linked to a site35,069
  • Linked to a tomb4,835
  • Linked to a publication7,337
  • Naming people932

Bars out of all 40,283 items.

The places shown most

Items by the site their record names.

The photo wall

Every collection on one wall

A sample of 1,614 pictures, drawn evenly from every collection, kind and decade; the filters count all 30,487 photographs, drawings, plans, maps, prints and paintings they are drawn from. Choose a picture to read its record beside the wall, and open its page for the rest.

The photo wallFilter by collection, kind and decade; choose a picture

When

When the items were made, decade by decade

21,373 items carry a date of their own, from the holder’s record or from the season in which their site was dug, and are counted here by the first year of that date; the busiest decade is the 1960s, with 8,446.

18,386 more are dated only by the span of their collection, most of them from the Swedish Cyprus Expedition, 1927–1931 (11,679) and the The French mission's excavations at Salamis, 1964–1974 (5,526), and 524 by the year in which they were published.

  1. 1720s4CVAR photographic archive 4
  2. 1730s–70snothing yet
  3. 1780s2CVAR photographic archive 2
  4. 1790s3CVAR photographic archive 3
  5. 1800s1CVAR photographic archive 1
  6. 1810s1CVAR photographic archive 1
  7. 1820snothing yet
  8. 1830s2CVAR photographic archive 2
  9. 1840snothing yet
  10. 1850s3CVAR photographic archive 3
  11. 1860s3CVAR photographic archive 3
  12. 1870s58John Thomson, Cyprus 1878 36 · CVAR photographic archive 14 · Colonial Office photographs (CO 1069) 5 · others 3
  13. 1880s87Lawrence-Cesnola album 78 · CVAR photographic archive 9
  14. 1890s2Salamis, French mission 1964–1974 2
  15. 1900s139CVAR photographic archive 112 · Colonial Office photographs (CO 1069) 20 · TIMEA: views from Löher and Haggard 7
  16. 1910s70CVAR photographic archive 70
  17. 1920s2,019Swedish Cyprus Expedition 1,956 · CVAR photographic archive 61 · Enkomi, Schaeffer archive 2
  18. 1930s720Swedish Cyprus Expedition 398 · Enkomi, Schaeffer archive 154 · CVAR photographic archive 112 · others 56
  19. 1940s387Enkomi, Schaeffer archive 315 · Kourion, Penn Museum expedition 53 · Matson photographs, Cyprus 1945 14 · others 5
  20. 1950s805Enkomi, Schaeffer archive 434 · CVAR photographic archive 311 · Kourion, Penn Museum expedition 44 · others 16
  21. 1960s8,446Salamis, French mission 1964–1974 7,397 · Enkomi, Schaeffer archive 977 · CVAR photographic archive 72
  22. 1970s3,464Salamis, French mission 1964–1974 3,293 · Enkomi, Schaeffer archive 112 · Kition-Bamboula, Sondage 10 51 · others 8
  23. 1980s221Kition-Bamboula, French mission 207 · Salamis, French mission 1964–1974 7 · CVAR photographic archive 4 · others 3
  24. 1990s367Kition-Bamboula, French mission 366 · Enkomi, Schaeffer archive 1
  25. 2000s129Kition-Bamboula, French mission 128 · CVAR photographic archive 1
  26. 2010s3,776Kition-Bamboula, Sondage 10 1,874 · Kition-Pervolia, French mission 2012–2014 1,681 · Kition, the Mound, French mission 2019 221
  27. 2020s664Kition-Bamboula, Sondage 10 659 · Kition, the Mound, French mission 2019 5

How it is made

One record, taken apart

Each collection is published from the holder’s own catalogue, under the holder’s numbers, and each item keeps the holder’s record in the language it was written in. Beside it we write an English caption, translated from that record or, where the record says little, describing what the picture shows. Both stay on the page, so the one can always be checked against the other.

Dates come from the record where it gives one. Where it gives only the years of a whole expedition, the photograph is dated by the season in which its site was dug, from the expedition’s diaries and its publications, and the page says how the date is known. The sites, excavations, tombs, people and publications a record names are matched to the site’s registers, so each item links to their pages.

Excavation at Ayia Irini: a seated man in a hat writes while four workers clean and sort broken finds on the ground
Work in progress: Erik Sjöqvist at Ayia IriniSwedish Cyprus Expedition, 1927–1931. Photograph: John Lindros, Swedish Cyprus Expedition, 1929–30. Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm, C01811. Public domain (CC0).

  1. The picture

    The holder's own scan (the holder publishes 2 of this photograph); the full-resolution scan is also on Wikimedia Commons.

    Field photograph, black-and-white print, negative, glass negative. The file on Commons ↗

  2. The holder's record

    Kept as the holder wrote it, in Swedish, with the holder's number and a link to its catalogue.

    Arbetsbild. Erik Sjöqvist. Ajia Irini. Svenska CypernexpeditionenMedelhavsmuseet, Stockholm, C01811 · the museum’s record ↗

  3. Our English caption

    Translated from the holder's record; the page's title is made from it.

    Work in progress. Erik Sjöqvist. Ayia Irini.

  4. The date, and how it is known

    The record gives only the years of the whole expedition; the photograph is dated by the season in which its site was dug.

    1929–30Ayia Irini (sanctuary): from November 1929 (end not recorded)

  5. Who made it

    Linked to the person's page in the people register.

    John Lindros

  6. What and whom it shows

    The site, the excavation and the people in the picture, each linked to its own page where there is one.

    Site: Ayia Irini-PalaeokastroExcavation: Ayia Irini: the Swedish Cyprus Expedition's sanctuaryShown: Erik Sjöqvist

  7. Where it was published

    The publications that print the photograph, from the document register.

    The Swedish Cyprus Expedition: The Cyprus collections in Stockholm and the Swedish excavations after the SCE

  8. Licence and credit

    The licence the holder gives the image, the credit line that goes with it, and a citation ready to copy.

    Public domain (CC0)Photograph: John Lindros, Swedish Cyprus Expedition, 1929–30. Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm, C01811. Public domain (CC0).

  9. Cite it as

    John Lindros, “Work in progress: Erik Sjöqvist at Ayia Irini”, field photograph, 1929–30. Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm, C01811. The Archive, ancientcyprus.com, https://www.ancientcyprus.com/archive/sce-c01811 (accessed [date]).

    Open the whole record →

Diaries and papers

Field diaries and papers, transcribed beside their scans

1,377 documents, every page with its scan, a transcription and, where it is not in English, an English translation. In the Swedish Cyprus Expedition’s diaries each written line is also marked on its scan, so the transcription can be read against the hand. Every page, and every line on it, can be cited.

Printed books and journals are read the same way: see the books.

A page beside its transcriptionChange the document, turn the page, point at a line
Transcribed documents by collection and kind
CollectionKindDocumentsPagesWords
Kourion, Penn Museum expeditionObject cardss13712,737694,932
Enkomi, Schaeffer archiveNotebooks679,804552,922
Kourion, Penn Museum expeditionPhotographss1217,167188,346
Kourion, Penn Museum expeditionNotebooks655,459955,882
Enkomi, Schaeffer archiveManuscripts1373,180240,418
Kourion, Penn Museum expeditionCorrespondences352,743595,384
Enkomi, Schaeffer archiveLetters5412,169386,238
Swedish Cyprus ExpeditionField diaries172,125267,511
Enkomi, Schaeffer archiveDocuments1461,850372,592
Kition-Bamboula, French missionNotebooks281,594149,128
Kourion, Penn Museum expeditionField notess281,155322,678
Kourion, Penn Museum expeditionCatalogues21862249,296
Kourion, Penn Museum expeditionReports19578141,339
Kourion, Penn Museum expeditionAccountss836743,782
Kourion, Penn Museum expeditionDrawings and planss63237,118
Swedish Cyprus ExpeditionNotebooks11769,184
All1,37752,2895,176,750

Start here

Records worth opening first

A few items and documents from different collections, each showing a different part of what a record holds.

Using it

Licences, credits and citing

Every image is shown under the licence its holder gives it, named on its page with the credit line that goes with it. Images in the public domain can be reused freely; those under a Creative Commons licence on its terms, with the credit it asks for. The CVAR photographs are shown here by the Centre’s permission and are not under an open licence: for any other use, ask the Centre. Our own text (the English captions, notes, transcriptions and translations) is CC BY 4.0.

Each item page gives a citation in plain, Chicago and BibTeX form, and each page of a diary or paper can be cited down to the line. Each collection’s rights and citation page sets out its licence in full.

Items by licence

Where it is

The Archive
every collection, the diaries and papers, and the books
A collection
its series, its diaries, and its pictures in the holder's order
Rights and how to cite
a collection's licence, credit and citation
Objects in the Archive
the objects in the photographs, cards and drawings, searchable together

The holders

The institutions whose collections are in the Archive, each with its page in the institution register.

What comes next

More collections, and every field photograph placed

  • More collections

    Further archives, with their credit and a link back

    Archives and museums with photographs, drawings or field records of Cypriot archaeology already digitised can join the Archive, under their own numbers and licence, with their credit and a link back to their own catalogue. We would like to hear from them: get in touch.

  • Where the photographs were taken

    Each field photograph placed, and found from the map

    The site each field photograph shows, the spot it was taken from and its date, beginning with the Swedish Cyprus Expedition’s 3,223 field photographs, of which 2,437 are already linked to their site, so they can be found from the map and shared, located, with Wikimedia Commons.