Cypriot antiquities, Munich State Prehistoric Collection

I found an exhibition catalogue of Cypriot antiquities in the Munich State Prehistoric Collection, though the catalogue actually has frustratingly little information in it.

Nevertheless, I hoped that the catalogue could perhaps (only) be (vaguely) useful to affirm that: first, international public and private antiquities collections hold many unprovenienced artefacts (1) from Cyprus, many of which are probably looted artefacts; and second, thereby, those collectors directly or indirectly supported the looting of cultural heritage from Cyprus.

(I'm afraid that all German-English translations are mine.)

Introduction

Now the Chief Curator of the Munich Museum for Prehistory and Early History, archaeologist Dr. Gisela Zahlhaas edited the exhibition catalogue of Finds of the Bronze Age in Cyprus (2).

Then Director of the Munich State Prehistoric Collection, archaeologist and numismatist Hans-Jörg Kellner (1977: 11) explained that:

The exhibition was put together almost exclusively from the State Prehistoric Collection's own inventory. The group of archaeological finds from Cyprus got here on a long tradition of collecting; Julius Naue brought the first pieces to Bavaria in 1886.

But this exhibition would not have been possible without the private collection of Sanzin, which in the years after 1960 [i.e. after the end of colonial occupation], was almost closed. Some of the illustrated pottery had come to the museum as a gift or through art dealers.

All these Cypriot acquisitions were in line with the intentions of the State Prehistoric Collection, similarly the exhibition is not a view of the exceptional, but rather the determining factor was the typical, the characteristic.(3)

Preamble

Unfortunately, the catalogue very rarely gave information; and it never identified or distinguished between excavated, surveyed, confiscated, donated, and purchased antiquities.

Moreover, the vast majority of the artefacts appear to have been inventoried just before their permanent exhibition (as 93 of the 104 inventory numbers began with "1974" or "1975"); so, I couldn't even guess their original accession date.

Still, it is possible to work out some things because of the lack of information. If archaeologists had made chance finds of artefacts, those chance finds would have had find-spots.

Likewise, if peasants had made chance finds of artefacts on their land (or on land they worked on, grazed their animals on, etc.), and if archaeologists or antiquarians had acquired those chance finds, those chance finds would (probably) have had find-spots.(4)

Furthermore, if the artefacts were worthy of international exhibition, they would (probably) have been mentioned in one publication or another, if only as an aside in the Annual Report of the Director of the Department of Antiquities (ARDA).

(Moreover, many looted artefacts have been published, with find-spots, so even having both pieces of information is no guarantee, if the catalogue does not explicitly state the artefact was found by excavation, survey or chance.)

So, if archaeological artefacts had a literature reference but no find-spot, they were probably looted; and if antiquities had find-spots but no literature reference, they were also probably looted; and if they had no find-spot or literature reference, they were very probably looted.

David Gill and Christopher Chippindale (1993: 610) defined "surfaced" artefacts as 'object[s] whose finding or excavation in the field has never been reported.... which appear in an exhibition or sale without history, previous publication, or other account'.

Gill and Chippindale (1993: 610) identified the three sources of surfaced objects as illicit excavation, forgery, and old collections; but they dismissed old collections being significant sources as 'a [c]onvenient [f]iction' (1993: 622).

Furthermore, I fear supply of illicit Cypriot antiquities has been so great it has met the demand, so there has never been a market for a forgery industry. Thus, while a few of the surfaced objects may have been forgotten or forged, most will have been looted.

Data

The catalogue presented 104 inventoried artefacts (under 79 catalogue numbers). It listed: only 6 artefacts with find-spots and literature references; 4 with find-spots, and 2 more with find-spots and (here, irrelevant) comparative literature references; 5 with literature references; and 6 with (again, here, irrelevant) comparative literature references, as well as 81 with no information whatsoever.

Thus, 87 (83.65%) of the artefacts lacked any information whatsoever; and 93 (89.42%) lacked reliable provenience. 98 (94.27%) of them were probably looted; or only 6 (5.77%) were probably excavated scientifically (and legally, and without the illicit antiquities trade's cultural, economic and political harms).

Looting communities

This catalogue's sample of probably looted artefacts with find-spots is too small to learn anything significant about different communities' roles in the illicit antiquities trade.

Nevertheless, for the record: one probably looted artefact inventoried in 1967 was from 'Dhenia bei Akaki', both of which were majority Greek Cypriot mixed villages (Zahlhaas, 1977: 25); and one inventoried in 1975 was from the majority Greek Cypriot mixed village of Polis (Zahlhaas, 1977: 39).

The other four probably looted artefacts were from the non-existent village of "Maloula" (5) - presumably, a misrecording of the Greek Cypriot village of Athienou Malloura - two inventoried in 1969, and two in 1972 (Zahlhaas, 1977: 26; 33; 34; 44).

According to the Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus in Washington, D.C., Athienou Malloura had been 'visited by grave robbers in the 1930s and 1960s, according to The Cyprus Weekly' (ERC, 2005); but the Athienou Archaeological Project was even more specific.

Malloura's sanctuary site was 'looted in the 1930s' (Toumazou, Kardulias and Yerkes, 1992), then those looters 'exported hundreds of statues from Cyprus illegally' (AAP, 2005).

Local contacts told the Project that 'as recently as the 1960's [sic]', Malloura's burial site, Mağara Tepesi, was 'destroyed by looters, bulldozing, and plowing' (AAP, 2005). So, the four probably looted artefacts from Athienou Malloura may be from the tombs of Mağara Tepesi.

1. Unprovenienced artefacts are objects that have no information about their archaeological context, so they can teach very little about the society/societies that made and used them.
2. Funde der Bronzezeit auf Zypern
3. Die Ausstellung wurde fast ausschließlich aus eigenen Beständen der Prähistorischen Staatssammlung zusammengestellt. Die Gruppe der Bodenfunde aus Zypern geht hier auf eine lange Sammeltradition zurück; die ersten Stücke brachte schon 1886 Julius Naue nach Bayern.
   
   Doch ware diese Ausstellung ohne die Privatsammlung Sanzin nicht möglich gewesen, die in den Jahren nach 1960 fast geschlossen übernommen werden konnte. Manche der gezeigten Tongefäße waren auch als Schenkung oder durch den Kunsthandel in das Museum gelangt.
   
   Entsprechend der Intention der Prähistorischen Staatssammlung war bei allen diesen zyprischen Erwerbungen ebenso wie bei der Ausstellung nicht der Blick auf das Exzeptionelle, sondern der auf das Typische, Charakteristische bestimmend gewesen (Kellner, 1977: 11).
   
   [This was a single paragraph; but I inserted paragraph breaks to make it easy to read in a blog.]
4. Gill and Chippindale (1993: 608) judged that only 'very few of these [farmers'] older finds may have been conveyed into the corpus'.
5. "Maloula" doesn't appear in the glossary of geographical terms or in the toponymy of village names of the Complete Gazetteer of Cyprus (ROCPCSGN, 1987: xv; 773).

Bibliography

AAP (Athienou Archaeological Project). 2005: "About Athienou-Malloura". Athienou Archaeological Project, 7th November. Available at: http://www.davidson.edu/academic/classics/Toumazou/AAP/site.html

ERC (Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus in Washington, D.C.). 2005: "Archaeologists dig new finds". Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus in Washington, D.C., 1st September. Available at: http://www.cyprusembassy.net/home/index.php?module=article&id=2891

Gill, D W and Chippindale, C. 1993: "Material and intellectual consequences of esteem for Cycladic figures". American Journal of Archaeology, Volume 97, Number 4, 601-659.

Kellner, H-J. 1977: "Vorwort [Foreword]". In Zahlhaas, G, (Be.). Funde der Bronzezeit auf Zypern: Katalog der Ausstellung [finds of the Bronze Age in Cyprus: Catalogue of the exhibition], 7-11. München: Prähistoriche Staatssammlung München Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte.

ROCPCSGN (Republic of Cyprus Permanent Committee for the Standardization of Geographical Names). 1987: A complete gazetteer of Cyprus, volume 1. Nicosia: Cyprus Research Centre and Republic of Cyprus Department of Lands and Surveys.

Toumazou, M K, Kardulias, P N and Yerkes, R W. 1992: "Excavation and survey in the Malloura Valley, central Cyprus: The 1991 season". Old World Archaeology Newsletter, Volume 15, Number 3, 18-23. Available at: http://www.davidson.edu/academic/classics/Toumazou/AAP/articles/91season.html

Zahlhaas, G, (Be.). 1977: Funde der Bronzezeit auf Zypern: Katalog der Ausstellung [finds of the Bronze Age in Cyprus: Catalogue of the exhibition]. München: Prähistoriche Staatssammlung München Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte.