III · Research · Kitchener's map
Kitchener's survey of 1882, name by name
In progress
Kitchener’s Trigonometrical Survey of Cyprus, fifteen sheets at one inch to the mile, dated 1882, was the first accurate map of the whole island. It records the island the first excavators knew: its villages, churches, monasteries, ruins, rivers, capes and named localities.
We have read every name on its sheets, each one twice, independently, and settled the differences on the sheet itself. Each place is matched to its name today, to the census of 1881 and to the spellings the old literature gave it, so an excavation report of 1899 and a map of today can be read together.
How it is made
How the names were read and matched
The work runs from the printed sheet to today’s map in five steps, and every step keeps what it could not settle visible rather than guess.
- 1
The sheets
We read the fifteen sheets from the scans of the National Library of Scotland. Kitchener names a place’s kind in words on the sheet, and we keep his words: Potamós for a river, Vounó for a mountain, Vrýsis for a spring, Mon. for a monastery, Ch. for a church, (R.) or (Ruins) for ruins.
- 2
Reading every name twice
Each sheet was divided into overlapping sections and every name read twice, independently. Where the two readings differed, the difference was settled by looking again at the sheet at a larger scale. Labels cut by the edge of a section, or of a sheet, were joined into one name; district names lettered across several sheets were joined too.
A third independent reading then went over every name, and wherever it disagreed we went back to the sheet.
- 3
Placing each name
Each sheet was fitted to today’s map from points whose position is known: the triangulation stations printed on the sheets, matched to the summits they stand on, churches and monasteries, and the coastline. Where the sheet draws a symbol, such as a village’s houses, the place sits on it; a name with no symbol, such as a locality or a mountain, sits on its lettering.
- 4
Matching to today
Each name was compared with the places of the 1881 census, the Department of Lands and Surveys’ geographical names and cadastral toponyms, and today’s Greek names, romanised by the Greek standard ELOT 743. A match must agree in name and lie nearby; where the rules left a match open it was checked on the sheet, and a match we could not settle is left out rather than guessed.
- 5
The old spellings
The spellings come from the reports, travel accounts and catalogues published before 1974, and from our own registers and records, each tied to its place on the sheet. They are what makes the old literature readable on a modern map: Larneca and Citium, Cerinia, Cythrea, Athieno.
Using it
Sources, credits and how to cite
The readings, the matches to today’s names and the spellings gathered from the old literature are our own work, licensed CC BY-NC 4.0: free to reuse for any non-commercial purpose, with credit to Ancient Cyprus. The map of 1882 itself is long out of copyright. The readings are not yet published as data; until they are, cite this page and the map, and tell us of any correction through our contact page.
The sources
- H. H. Kitchener, Trigonometrical Survey of the Island of Cyprus, 1 inch to 1 mile, 15 sheets, 1882. Scans: National Library of Scotland, CC BY.
- Places of the 1881 census: Harokopio University, published on Mendeley Data (doi 10.17632/dvvm9cns2x.2), CC BY 4.0.
- Department of Lands and Surveys, Geographical Names and Localities (INSPIRE), and Toponyms of the cadastral map, data.gov.cy, CC BY 4.0.
- Greek names: Wikidata, CC0, romanised by ELOT 743.
- Other modern names: GeoNames, geonames.org, CC BY 4.0.
How to cite
This page:
Ancient Cyprus, “Kitchener’s survey of 1882, name by name”, ancientcyprus.com/projects/kitchener-map (accessed on the day you read it).
The map:
H. H. Kitchener, Trigonometrical Survey of the Island of Cyprus, 1 inch to 1 mile, 15 sheets, 1882, sheet [number].
The site is free and non-commercial. Place pages, and the readings as data, will carry the same licence and their own credit lines when they are published.
What comes next
What comes next
The names are read and matched. What we are building on them:
The map as a layer
The sheets themselves, fitted to today's map, as a layer on our island map beside the survey of the 1960s, to lay over today's map at any strength.
A page for every place
Each place with everything our registers hold there: its sites, excavations and tombs, the events in people's lives, the publications and the archive's photographs.
The antiquities the sheets mark
Kitchener marks ruins, tombs, slag heaps and ancient names. Each is being checked against our site register, so that places he saw and the register lacks can be added.
Old find-spots placed
Records of excavations, tombs and museum objects that give only a village's name, placed through the names on the sheets.
More of the old literature
More of the reports and travel accounts read for the spellings they use, so that more of the old names can be found.
The survey redrawn
Later, Kitchener's map redrawn as a map of its own, sharp at any scale, with today's names beside his, the archaeology of the survey years placed on it, and uncertain readings drawn as uncertain.