The Archaeological Activities of the Scott-Stevensons in Cyprus, 1878–1883

Abstract

The early years of the British administration in Cyprus, which began in 1878, were characterised by an approach of casual acquisition towards the island’s ancient material culture. Civilian administrators and military personnel stationed in Cyprus, prompted by the island’s reputation as a rich source of antiquities, took the opportunity to explore ancient tombs and acquire objects to keep as personal souvenirs or to sell, despite official restrictions on excavation. The nascent Cyprus Museum, responsible for the island’s cultural heritage, lacked resources to restrict or closely monitor this activity. Many objects were removed from their context of excavation without proper recording, resulting in the formation of numerous disparate collections across the UK which lack provenance and documentation. This paper seeks to restore contextual information to some objects dispersed in this way through a re-examination of archives and published sources. While this cannot reconstruct a full archaeological provenance, it can add to the knowledge of individual objects and their collection history, and more broadly the ways in which private and public collections of ancient Cypriot objects were formed through social and intellectual networks. It focuses on the archaeological activities of two British residents, Andrew and Esmé Scott-Stevenson, in Cyprus between 1878 and 1883, demonstrating how such research can contribute both to the archaeological record, and to the social history of archaeology in Cyprus, in particular the recovery of seldom-heard women’s voices.