Over the past few weeks I’ve been lucky enough to attend two conferences on the subject of Cyprus – a brilliant way to start the academic year, not least because the train journeys offer an excellent opportunity to get some reading done!
It was good to visit the Fitzwilliam Museum again for ‘Re-approaching Cyprus’ on 23 October, and to listen to a very varied and interesting programme of cutting-edge research on ancient Cyprus. I particularly enjoyed Cyprian Broodbank’s introduction, discussing ‘how Cyprus exemplifies, defies, and weaves in and out of Mediterranean history’. His book The Making of the Middle Sea is next on my reading list. Giorgos Bourogiannis gave a fascinating insight into what happened next to the minor finds from the Swedish Cyprus Expedition at Ayia Irini, and I really enjoyed Daisy Knox’s theories on the uses and functions of the enigmatic Early Bronze Age Cypriot plank figurines. Thomas Kiely from the British Museum talked about a ‘re-excavation’ of the results of early excavations at Salamis, stating that ‘Museums are as fertile as many archaeological sites in terms of what you can discover in collections and archives’, a key idea in my approach to my own work.
I took the opportunity to visit the Fitzwilliam’s A.G. Leventis gallery of Cypriot antiquities, and particularly liked the fantastic bird-snake creatures on this Mycenaean krater.
Mycenaean krater with serpentine birds
© Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
The collection includes a Bichrome krater previously belonging to the family of T.B. Sandwith.
Bichrome krater from the collection of T.B. Sandwith
© Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
There was also a large Bichrome barrel jug from the collection of the Rev. Samuel Savage Lewis, Librarian at Corpus Christi College in the late 19th century. Lewis had an extensive antiquarian collection, recently discussed in a blog post by Kate Beats from the Department of Antiquities at the Fitzwilliam. We know from the Leeds City Museum’s archive that Lewis made enquiries of the Curator of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society concerning the sale of Sandwith’s ancient Cypriot collection. It’s therefore possible that a few of Sandwith’s objects survive in the Lewis Collection, now at the Fitzwilliam; a potential link that I hope to follow up at some point.
Bichrome barrel jug from the collection of S.S. Lewis
© Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
This was followed a week later by a one-day conference on ‘Cyprus: Its Archaeology and Heritage’, organised by the Cyprus Centre at the London Metropolitan University. It attracted a wide range of speakers, providing the opportunity to hear about experimental archaeology, noteworthy Roman visitors to Cypriot sites, and modern artistic responses to Cyprus, among many other subjects. It was great to hear from Amy Smith about the brand new publication Cypriote Antiquities in Reading, including the Ure Museum collection, in the Corpus of Cypriote Antiquities series. Chrissy Partheni talked about the Cypriot collection at National Museums Liverpool, which has made me want to visit at the earliest opportunity. It’s never too early to start planning the next trip!
Ancient Cypriot art in Leeds 
